


Cleave unto me

by josephides



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: F/M, are there any happy werewolves, everyone has a tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25016476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides
Summary: Once every fifteen years, Bran held a conclave in Aspen Creek with all the Alphas in Northern America. It was every fifteen years because ten years passed far, far too quickly for everyone’s liking and yet twenty felt too long, almost neglectful. Every alternate conclave, mates and wives were welcome to also participate. This last edict was because it was already difficult enough ensuring that some of the more egotistical Alpha males didn’t come to blows without adding their women into the mix.
Relationships: Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick, Leah Cornick/Original Male Character
Comments: 19
Kudos: 316





	Cleave unto me

“Who does your hair, Leah?” Anna asked.

“Bran,” she said, using a knife to level off the cup of flour before dropping it into the bowl with the rest of the dry ingredients.

“Really?”

Leah glanced over. Anna was ‘loitering’ in her kitchen because her mate was having a private conversation with the Marrok. She was dressed up. They were going for dinner. Leah had last ‘gone for dinner’ with her mate in 1973 and even that had been because the then Alpha of Tryon Creek had been visiting and Bran had been feeling bombastic. He had ignored her all night, paying more attention to the Alpha’s wife than her. “Yes. He always has.”

“I guess… he does a good job?” Anna said, sounding as if she was unsure of this. Leah’s hair was currently in a bun on top of her head so she decided not to take offense.

As far as Leah was concerned, he only had to chop in a straight line. It wasn’t that complicated. She didn’t go for any of these ‘fancy’ styles with bangs and feathering. She kept it just below her shoulders because too short and she would have to fuss with it and too long it would get in the way. And, Leah liked the way Bran’s hands felt in her hair and the way he would study the lengths at the front, leaning close to her face. It felt intimate. Reminded her of something safe. 

“Why don’t you go to a hairdresser?”

“Because Bran’s always done it,” Leah answered, feeling like she was repeating herself. There were better things to spend money on. She thought about it a little more and sighed. “He’s funny about hair clippings, too.”

“What, like they could be used for something?”

Leah shrugged. Her knowledge of witchcraft was limited to what she had gleaned from Bran, who wasn’t particularly talkative on the subject. Her father had a witch but Leah had been kept away from her. Or perhaps the other way around. “Yes. He always burns them.”

They had a circular tarp that he set up underneath a chair in their kitchen, then afterwards he’d fold it carefully and pour the contents into his fireplace. Stank like crazy but it was his office and he didn’t seem to care.

“Is that something we should all be worried about?”

“Why don’t you ask Charles?” Leah suggested, hearing him leave Bran’s office.

Her mate’s son stuck his head round the kitchen door. “Ready to go?” he asked, as if Anna hadn’t just been waiting for him. He looked at Leah and managed his usual sullen greeting. “Hello, Leah.”

“Charles,” she said, adding a pinch of salt and giving the ingredients in the bowl a stir.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later,” Anna said, brightly.

When they were gone, and the cake batter was in the oven on a timer, Leah finished cleaning, wiped her hands and went to Bran’s office. He was sitting back in his chair, his socked-feet crossed on his desk, reading a magazine.

“Why do you cut my hair?” she asked him, because questions that came out of nowhere were very much the norm when you had been married for two centuries.

Bran didn’t look up, just answered whilst he was still reading. “Hair has power,” he said, briefly.

“That’s what I thought.” She turned to go and then span back. “Do you cut anyone else’s hair?”

He rested the magazine on his chest and studied her, inscrutable as always. “No, my services are exclusively yours.”

This made her smile because he meant it to. “Why not Charles? Or Anna?”

“Charles can take care of his own.”

“Anna goes to a hairdresser in Billings.” One whom she had just complained about.

Bran gave this some thought. “Realistically, if someone was going to cause problems, you would be more significant than Anna. Fond as I am, _I_ would probably not be affected by her.” He shook out the magazine. Leah reflected that she wasn’t certain Bran even allowed himself to be ‘fond’ of her. “However, given where we are with _the witches_ , it is worth me bringing it up with Charles. Someone could use her against him and then where would we be, hmm?”

Leah agreed. They didn’t, after all, know what else Sage had told her witch family about them. It was surely worth them being extra vigilant.

*

The day after Kara turned eighteen, Leah took her to get birth control. And burgers.

“This is a weird birthday treat,” Kara said, shuffling into the booth, the paper wrapped package of her contraceptive pill in her handbag. She had just about stopped blushing, having turned scarlet as she was interrogated about her sexual activity and being embarrassed into admitting it was precisely ‘zero’. Not that Leah needed it confirming – there were enough overprotective men in the pack who would have roared out loud if they’d scented a boy on Kara. Leah had enough personal experience to know it was hard to hide a sexual relationship if someone was determined to discover it.

“Mmm,” Leah said, looking at the menu she knew off by heart. Bob’s did the best burgers and she was going to ask for _everything_ and then order some more to take home to reheat later. She didn’t often leave Aspen Creek – she didn’t really need to, or want to – but when she did, she ensured it was worth it.

“Do you take every girl to get the pill after their eighteen birthday?”

“Only if they’re like you,” she said, meaning a female, teenage werewolf. She put put her menu down as the waiter came over. “Coke for both of us, please.”

If the waiter was surprised at her abruptness, he covered it up with a white, toothy smile his parents would have paid through the nose for. “Sure thing. I’m Cory, by the way. Let me know when you’re ready to order and I’ll be right back with those cokes.” Cory, nominally attractive for a human, looked between the two of them and smiled, waggling his pen. “Are you twins?” he asked, with the kind of flirtatious suspiciousness that only the truly confident teenage boy could pull off.

Leah and Kara were obviously _not_ twins. Whilst Leah could – and regularly did – pass for a young woman in her early twenties, Kara was still demonstrably a teenage girl. A strong, vigorous looking teenage girl but a girl no less. There was an air about her that was definitively _younger_ , somehow.

“Yes,” Kara said, smiling back mischievously, popping the dimple on her left cheek. “Though she’s a whole five minutes younger than me.”

“I would have guessed it was the other way around.”

Rolling her eyes, Leah checked her phone whilst Kara asked what ‘Cory’ recommended from the menu, as if she wasn’t going to order a cheeseburger and fries like she always did.

There was a message from Bran, unusually. He rarely texted and her heart gave a concerned ‘blip’ when she saw his name. All it said, however, was, _Please bring me back a burger_.

Unlike Bran, she left details of her whereabouts on the calendar in the kitchen. Today’s had read ‘Planned parenthood’ and ‘Bobs’.

She wrote back, _Chicken thing or the disgusting hot sauce one?_

The little dots formed telling her he was writing. _Both._ Then, _Also the cheesecake. Thank you._

She smiled and put her phone away. Cory had gone but their cokes had arrived. Kara was staring after him with hungry eyes. “Bet you’re grateful for the contraception, now,” Leah said, taking a sip.

Kara gaped at her. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me to wait until I find the one or something?”

Leah was revolted. “Don’t be ridiculous; there’s no such thing.” She pretended to think about it some more. “Though I would suggest you wait for someone from your own species. You shouldn’t have to worry about crushing his sensitive parts your first time.”

Kara’s face was still scarlet by the time ‘Cory’ came back to take their orders. Leah considered the day a total success.

*

“You know the Lucas brothers best. Which one of them would you say is more stable?”

“Jeremy,” she said without pausing the movie. Then she did pause it and leaned over the back of the couch to look at her mate. “Why are you asking?”

“Yelger has just ceded his pack to his son.”

Leah pulled a face, one that Bran mirrored. Yelger’s son was both weak-willed and simply weak and his father was blind to it. His second and third were no better. “That’s unfortunate. Jeremy is more than capable of squashing that little bug. But he’ll take his brother with him,” she added, in case that was relevant. The two had been inseparable, Changed on the same night by the same man, they had moved from pack to pack, always together. 

“That’s fine. Just so long as he knows who I am counting on as the new Alpha.” 

She thought Jeremy would be a good fit and had long been ready to be the Alpha of a small pack like Yelger’s.

She restarted the movie, just as a violent shooting scene started – the only excuse for why Bran was able to creep up behind her and pull her head back by her ponytail. He loomed above her. “Did he court you as well?” 

When Bran arrived in America, there were a dozen already established werewolf packs, mostly focused along the East coast. Their presence – and his wish to avoid his werewolf brethren for the time being – had led to Bran making his way across the country to eventually settle in Montana and fall in love with the woman who would later shadow Leah’s marriage. After Blue Jay Woman died, and Bran’s wolf exacerbated their need for a new mate, Bran had travelled back East again to where he knew there would be werewolves and strong women who would not die.

Leah’s father had been – still was – the Alpha of the pack that had settled in Massachusetts, along the Connecticut River. He claimed to have come over on the Mayflower as part of the crew, a carpenter, though no one could validate this claim and it became one of the stories her father had told when he was maudlin. His carpentry business had flourished and he had diversified, built up property and land in Boston, establishing his pack by accepting lone wolves as they made their way to the New World, or by changing his own.

By the time Bran arrived in Massachusetts, searching for a suitable mate, Leah was the only surviving child from her father’s brief marriage to a human woman and, more to the point, the one daughter he’d ever had who had survived the Change.

As the wealthy Alpha’s only human daughter, she had spent her childhood being phenomenally spoilt by all and sundry, her every whim and wish granted. Her adult werewolf years were a more polarizing time – her benevolent father had turned to dictator now she was no longer human, punishing and rewarding her behavior as he saw fit. He encouraged many of the Alphas of the eastern packs – and their sons – to court her, using her as a potential tool for alliance, for access to the wealth and power he offered with absolutely no intention of giving her up.

He had not been pleased when she had – unbeknownst to him – formed her bargain with Bran to be his mate. 

“Yes,” she said, frowning up at him. “My father rejected him for one of his usual spurious reasons. Is that relevant?”

“No. But it could be useful.” Bran released her and went back to his office.

Shaking her head – she couldn’t see how it would be - she rewound by thirty seconds and settled back down to watch.

*

Once every fifteen years, Bran held a conclave in Aspen Creek with all the Alphas in Northern America. It was every fifteen years because ten years passed far, far too quickly for everyone’s liking and yet twenty felt too long, almost neglectful. Every alternate conclave, mates and wives were welcome to also participate. This last edict was because it was already difficult enough ensuring that some of the more egotistical Alpha males didn’t come to blows without adding their women into the mix.

This year, mere months after Sage had been revealed as their long-term traitor, they were holding the full conclave.

“I feel like we just did this,” Charles sighed, opening his laptop.

No one enjoyed the conclave.

They were sitting around the dining table, because for once Leah had been invited to a work-related meeting and there wasn’t enough room for the three of them in Bran's office. She normally wasn’t included in ‘business’ discussions. Her role was predominantly locally based, though Bran had in the past used her for exacting punishment for crimes carried out by female werewolves. The ‘optics’, he said, looked better. Nowadays, the work as the Marrok was usually meted out between Charles and Sam, occasionally Asil if it involved someone Bran cared particularly about. Like Mercedes.

Bran pinched the bridge of his nose. “The timing could be better,” he admitted. “But we’re a couple of years into being out so giving a general progress update on that is timely. We can also discuss the next wave. You have my list of who I think should be put forward for that. We also obviously need to update on the witches. And the migrations. I’ll elaborate on those werewolves who have requested to migrate to the US.”

Charles nodded, typing up the loose agenda as Bran talked. “Leah, what about you?”

Leah’s list of discussion points was short. She decided to get the one she most didn’t want to talk about over with first, looking at the back of Charles’s laptop as she did so. “I’d like Sam to give the female werewolves an update on the work he’s doing with fertility. I know there’s a great deal of interest in what he and his team have been doing.”

Samuel didn’t live in Aspen Creek, hadn’t done for years. He currently split his time between the Tri-Cities, where Adam tolerated a more dominant lone wolf with surprising equanimity, and Africa. He would need to be invited specifically – which would take time to arrange – and he would also have to be prepared to present an update. At the moment, the only person he updated was Bran and Bran didn’t think it was a topic she would be interested in. Children had not been part of their bargain because she had been young and selfish and didn’t know any better and because Bran had explicitly said he didn’t want any more.

“Don’t you think that’s something that should be discussed with the whole group?” Charles wanted to know.

Leah gritted her teeth and reminded herself that this was a _shared_ problem - that Charles was mated to a werewolf female who had made it abundantly clear that she wanted children. “You can also have a session with the men. But I want – would prefer – a private session for the women. They may feel more comfortable discussing some issues without their mates present.”

Bran waved a hand dismissively. “Fine. That goes into the agenda – we’ll hold separate sessions. Next,” he said.

“Fostering,” she said, moving her notebook between her fingers, hurt at Bran’s brusque tone. “I want to talk about bringing back fostering.”

In her youth, packs would ‘foster’ newly changed werewolves from other packs on a short term basis, to give them experiences outside of the life they had known. They were always set up as temporary but could obviously become more permanent if there was a good fit. Leah herself had been fostered – with the underlying desire that she might form a relationship with either the Alpha, if he was unmarried, or a son of one.

Bran blinked at her. “Really. And would this, perhaps, have something to do with Kara?”

“Yes.” She had long expressed the opinion that Kara was old enough to move to another pack - whilst she went to college, perhaps, though she had as of yet not expressed an interest in more schooling.

It wasn’t because Leah wanted Kara to go – which is what Bran suspected – but because Aspen Creek was made up of old wolves with older ideas. The worst situation would be if through sheer inactivity on their part Kara found herself mated to one of them. Asil, perhaps, who already loved her in his way and had spent the last few years molding her into the kind of woman he respected. It was enough to make Leah shudder.

Charles sat back in his chair. “We should call it something else. Secondments. Placements.”

Leah hadn’t expected to find Charles amenable. He smiled at her – he really was handsome when he smiled - and inclined his head. “Anna agrees with you.” Another surprise. “And I agree, Da, young werewolves like Kara should be shown their options.”

Her mate wasn’t convinced. “Doesn’t this already happen? Unofficially?”

“Not with the new werewolves and specifically not with the few werewolves we have who were actually changed young,” Leah said. The old way had died out with Bran, who now moved wolves like his own personal chess pieces – and everyone was always a pawn. “What happens, as we all know, is that you stay with the pack that you were changed in. And those who survive the change young are very malleable. They get used to a certain way. Not always the best way, or the way in which they would flourish.”

Charles nodded. “If we put something in place officially, we could still co-ordinate it here.”

Bran grunted. “Seems like we’d be over-managing it.”

“Because otherwise it won’t happen. At least, not at the beginning. There used to be pride in fostering well. It’s… Asil is a perfect example,” Leah added, at the last minute.

“He is?” Her mate was astonished she would say something positive about the Moor.

“Yes. Kara was good for him, as much as he was for her. It’s given him a new lease of life.” She looked down at her notepad, reminding herself that she had won her first point and if she didn’t get this one, she had other routes she could work on that would benefit Kara alone. She, after all, still had connections.

Bran picked up a pen and ran it through his long fingers, his gold-and-green eyes dipped to the table in thought. “May I think about it?”

This, from him, was a good sign. She knew he liked to run scenarios. If he’d dismissed it out of hand, she would have had no chance.

She agreed and they moved on to the next topic.

*

Not being involved in Bran’s work, Leah had little call to interact with the Alphas of Northern America. Oh, she might pick up the phone sometimes, exchange a few words, before her husband took the phone at out of her hand, but it was only once cell phones had become common usage that she really began to reconnect.

Even then, it was difficult. Those who didn’t know her well tried to use her as a conduit to Bran, not realizing that there were things Bran might respect her for and then there were things with which Bran thought she had no business being involved. If she tried – and she had – to address any concerns they might have, he would slap her down brutally, dismissing her input. Others tried to use her to get information from Bran that he might not be sharing, as if she was some kind of tattle-tale. These ones she kept note of.

There were a few Alphas, of course, who she might still consider to be ‘friends’. Or as close to friends as the wife of the Marrok could be with his Alphas. There were still fewer female werewolves whom she tolerated. Leah, as had often been pointed out to her, did not get on well with women. For those few, she would do her best, for memories of shared adventures and experiences. The rest of them could go hang.

*

The conclave wasn’t mandatory which meant it absolutely was. In six weeks, nearly all the Alphas in Northern America plus their mates would be making their way to Aspen Creek.

They had booked out every motel, every available guest-room and rental, within an hour’s drive and Leah and Bran spent late nights working out which Alphas would be able to stay in the same building together, a complicated game of draughts.

Bran raised the question of whether they could have a couple stay in their guest room.

Leah loathed other dominants staying with them. She was more than happy for people to congregate in the downstairs communal areas but upstairs was private and their pack knew they were forbidden from going upstairs. She had been deeply uncomfortable having Charles and Anna staying whilst Bran had hared off to rescue Mercedes – it disrupted her routine and put her in a terrible mood. She’d felt invaded. Which Bran well knew when he left her.

Still. “I would rather have Anna and Charles stay here and use _their_ house for guests,” Leah said. And Charles had two guest rooms. 

She could see Bran thought she was being difficult and maybe she was, maybe this was something that she would grow out of over time. But then _he_ had his office. If _he_ wanted peace and quiet, he could go into the office and close the door and no one would dare bother him. She had to hide in her bedroom, which shared a wall with the guest room. When Charles and Anna had stayed, she had heard them talking at night, laughing. It had made her envious and sad and she had mostly slept in Bran’s room, giving herself the pathetic comfort that his scent gave her.

“Then we would have to ask Charles,” Bran said, finally. “I’m done with this. Let’s move on.”

*

Most meetings would take place in the pole barn except for any ‘break outs’ that were scheduled, such as Charles’s talk on cyber security. For those sessions, they would use the Church.

Feeding people – that was a whole other issue and one that Leah was expected to handle by herself. Bran just expected food to materialize. She briefed a couple of catering companies. The smaller one – as expected – said it didn’t have the resources. The larger one asked to come and look at her kitchen.

“Hmm,” Andrew Mathers said, looking at her cherry and stainless-steel kitchen. It had two double ovens and the biggest refrigerator she had been able to purchase at the time. “What’s through there?”

He pointed to a door to the laundry and she showed him inside. Seeing where he was going, she then showed him the pantry and the short walk down the hall to the entrance to the garage. There were two chest freezers in the garage. She saw him eyeing the workspace counter.

“We’ll need two more refrigerators,” Andrew said, finally, when they had gone back to the kitchen for him to study her appliances. “Which I suggest we put into the garage. Can you show me where you think you’ll be serving food and drinks?”

She took him out onto the covered decking. They discussed a self-service area for hot drinks and a little about how she would like the service to be styled. Andrew took a step back and looked at the decking from a few yards away. “OK. We’ll put a drinks refrigerator here, outside, so people can grab what they want.”

Finally, Leah wrote Andrew an obscenely large check for the upfront costs and labor and waved him off.

When he’d gone, she leaned against the door in relief. She’d had vague nightmares about having to manage the catering by herself. Last time, she hadn’t surfaced from the kitchen for three days and that had only been half the people. She’d felt like unpaid labor rather than the wife of the Marrok.

“Is this good news or bad news?” Bran asked her.

She pushed off from the door. “Catering done,” she said, not without triumph. She had not seen much of Bran that week – except in the dark, of course. She thought he was looking a little tired. He was wearing her favorite color on him, a brown-and-white checked shirt which brought out the green in his eyes and the blond highlights in his hair.

She wondered if he ever looked at her and thought the same – if there was something she wore that pleased him - and then dismissed this thought as sentimental nonsense.

Bran smiled. “That’s good news. I know you were worried. I also have some news. Your father, alas, has declined to attend the conclave.”

“Surprise,” she said, raising her eyebrows. It was not a surprise. Her father’s disappointment in her chosen mate, and then Bran’s forcing of him under his dominion, had more or less nailed shut the rekindling of any relationship she might once have had with him. It was his loss, she thought. He was an unpleasant man when crossed and had only become more unpleasant the more dominant Leah had shown herself to be.

“He is, however, sending his second.”

Her father’s pack was unfamiliar to her now, so his second could have been anyone and – given how out of touch her father was – probably a nobody. She was more concerned with protocol. If the Alpha wasn’t going to attend, then no one would. A second would have no vote in the conclave. He would be an observer only. “Are you all right with that?”

“Better than nothing, I suppose. I can’t really make an example of _your_ father.” The phone he was carrying in his hand rung. He gave it a distinct look of disgust. “It never stops,” he said, mildly. 

*

Charles agreed to take in one Alpha couple but said he wasn’t prepared to fill the other guest room. Leah could understand that even if she would rather Bran had insisted – which he wouldn’t because Charles’s wishes were more important to him than Leah’s. Charles also declined Leah’s kind invitation to stay at the main house which meant they did have to have someone in their house as well. Again – irritating.

“What about your father’s second?” Bran said, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Apparently a number of Alphas wanted to raise issues at the conclave and the agenda was becoming a problem. This was always the case.

“Perhaps he wants to stay in a tent in the back yard.”

“ _Leah_.” Bran was grumpy and irritable and not in the mood for her sniping.

“Fine, but I’ll have to sleep in your room the whole time,” she said, folding her arms.

“ _Fine_ ,” he replied, as if having her in his bed was an unbearable hardship.

Leah tried not to let her temper take hold. They weren’t, truly, angry with each other – it was one of the things she had to learn in the years of their marriage.

At least whoever this stranger was he was wouldn’t be bringing a woman. Having a strange female in her house would probably send her over the edge. “Wait, he’s not bringing a wife, is he? And _who_ is he?”

“I actually have no idea. Your father is being typically uncommunicative. His landline is now mysteriously out of service.” Ah, Leah thought. Another reason for Bran to be annoyed. He didn’t like mysteries. Whilst Bran didn’t expect to know every werewolf in America, she knew he still harked back to the old days when he did. “Who was it last?” he asked her.

Leah thought back to the last time she had any interaction with her father’s pack. It must have been in the 1920s and she had seen her father fleetingly. He had been rude about Bran – actually, he had made a sexually explicit reference, as she recalled – and she had thrown a chair at him. His second had stopped her father from responding and she had escaped alive. He had once beaten her so badly she hadn’t left her bed for months; something she never forgot. “Riku something – I forget his surname.”

Bran shook his head. “I remember. He went back to Japan.”

“Then I don’t know. Why wouldn’t he tell us who it is?” she asked, mostly to herself. It was annoying her that her father – of all people – was someone who had added to Bran’s stress. Out of deference to her, Bran gave her father more leeway than many others but she knew he regretted doing so. 

Her mate showed his teeth. “I imagine it’s because he’s someone I wouldn’t like.”

Sounded like her father. It was possible he hated Bran more than he hated her. “That’s quite a lot of people,” she mused, giving him a wry smile in an attempt to lighten the mood.

His phone rang again and without pausing Bran tossed it across the room. It shattered against the fireplace. It was the third landline phone they had lost that month; the last time she had ordered one Amazon had offered her a subscription.

Leah looked at the remains on the floor and then glanced at Bran, keeping her eyes lowered to his mouth. If she blinked quickly, she could see a dark shadow forming behind him that disappeared as soon as she focused. A shiver of unease stroked its way down her back. _Careful,_ it said.

“I think I might take a break,” Bran said brightly, getting up. “Let’s go for a run.”

*

She had the decking re-sanded and varnished, the walls repainted and the back yard tidied. She put two of the pack on repainting the pole barn. Anna suggested festoon lights for the inside and for the decking, which Leah rejected as childish and then came around to the idea. “It’s a good idea,” she begrudgingly told her pseudo-daughter-in-law because Bran had told her Anna wouldn’t try to manipulate her so much if she acknowledged when Anna was right, even if it was _after_ the fact. 

Leah hated it.

“Because she’s female and you reject anything another female says to you.” Bran was lying naked where she’d left him on his bed, staring at the ceiling, hands under his head whilst she got ready in her room. 

This was not the first time they’d had this conversation and once again Leah reflected that mentioning her feelings to him was always a mistake. According to Bran, having no female role models in her formative years had apparently ‘done a number’ on Leah’s psyche.

“Really, it’s almost magic in itself, the way your stubbornness even outweighs her Omega-ness,” he said, sounding almost admiring. “You just walk right into her traps.”

Leah pulled a face at her reflection, knowing he couldn’t see her. He regularly implied Anna was cleverer than her – it would be better, really, if he was just blunt. Just got it all out into the open. Leah always wanted people to say what they meant; it made things easier. Then she didn’t have to work it out.

Maybe Anna _was_ cleverer than her. She had been educated, she had worked for a living, she was musical – just like Bran – and she was an Omega. Anna was just all around better than Leah in all the ways that Bran counted.

Leah could run faster than anyone else, she could fire a weapon, could hunt, could kill. He respected these things – he regularly _used_ her for those things - but it often seemed like he didn’t _like_ them.

Feeling herself starting to get melancholy, she put down her hairbrush and went to get changed.

*

She dropped off some clothes at Kara’s apartment.

Kara unzipped the bag and looked inside. “Er, thanks.”

She waggled her finger at the teenager. “You need to wear one item a day whilst the conclave is happening. I expect them to be returned to me in _pristine_ condition.”

Puzzled, Kara lifted the first dress to her nose. Leah knew it was one she liked because she always complimented her when she was wearing it. It had a pretty green print that would suit Kara’s coloring. “You want me to smell like you. And Bran?” Kara guessed.

Leah was pleased. A couple of years ago, this wouldn’t have occurred to her. She gave Kara her biggest smile. “Good girl.”

“Is this a safety thing?” Kara began to take the other items out, smiling, and laying them out across her couch. “Hey, these are all really nice. I would totally wear these, anyway. Thank you.”

“Yes. A number of the Alphas are not mated and I want it clear that you’re ours.”

This made Kara’s face soften. “I am?”

“Yes. Always.” Since this was becoming sentimental, Leah gave the apartment a look around. Kara hadn’t been living by herself for very long and it showed. When she turned, Kara gave her an expression that said comments about her cleaning would not be taken well. “Can I at least wash the dishes?”

“Oh, go right ahead.”

*

Leah took herself for a particularly long run that evening. The conclave was in two days, with the first guests arriving the next night. There would be little time for indulging herself. A few ‘group activities’ had been scheduled to burn off excess energy, but for Leah, this time alone was time she needed to sort things through in her head. She always felt calmer after she’d been running.

Bran was waiting for her when she got back. She had barely toed off her sneakers when he grabbed her by the elbow and walked her upstairs. “What’s going on?” she asked as he pulled her into his bedroom.

“Take off your clothes,” he said, tugging off his T-shirt and then his pants.

“Really?” she said, suddenly recognizing the energy he was exuding for what it was. She peeled off her socks, then her leggings as he helped her with her tight top and flung it across the room, his eyes going to her breasts. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to _think_.”

She nodded and undid her sports bra. “Got it.”

Leah was more than happy to assist Bran in _not thinking_ since sex was one of the few things they did well together and both enjoyed. He then showered with her, demonstrating his talent for _not thinking_ vertically on wet surfaces, and then they climbed, still damp, into his sheets.

“I can’t wait for this to be over,” he told her shoulder.

Giving in to the temptation, she kissed the crown of his head, where the whorls of his hair were still wet and tangled. “Me too.”

*

When the Alphas arrived, Bran’s demeanor was that of a benevolent host, however. He greeted every male with a slap on the back and every female with an effusive – too effusive, to Leah’s mind – kiss on the cheek. For those whom Leah didn’t know, she was variously introduced as ‘my mate’ or ‘my wife’ – depending on whether or not the Alpha in question was mated or married.

Leah exchanged toothy smiles with the women did she know and slightly toothier ones with the women she didn’t. She all but ignored the humans. Bran pinched her hip. “Behave,” he said, through his teeth.

She stepped out of the increasingly busy living area to run through a few details with Andrew and the young woman who was his deputy. Leah had hired a number of the offspring from their pack to act as waiters for the first night, as Bran had been concerned about ‘strangers’ walking amongst them, but Andrew had quite fairly insisted that he would need professional support behind the scenes.

“Your father’s ‘friend’ has arrived,” Bran said, sticking his head into the kitchen, hazel eyes taking in the controlled chaos. “He’s in the front. Can you show him to his room?”

She nodded. “I’ll be right out.”

As she made her way through the living area to the front hall, she checked on Kara, to make sure she was still with Anna – she was – and that she looked happy. They were talking to the Alpha from Montreal who was actually single but not on Leah’s watch-out list. If anything, though, he looked more intrigued by Anna, who was probably first Omega he had ever met.

She summoned a smile and stepped into the front hall, where Bran had left her father’s second. She received two shocks then, each a sucker-punch to the heart, one after the other.

The first was that she _did_ know this man, the second was that she thought he was dead.

*

“Your father forbade me from contacting you,” the dead man whispered, dark grey eyes searching her face, pouring over her features like he was drinking her in.

She was too shocked to say anything. Numb with it. Her hand had reached up to clutch at the gold cross that hung around her neck, she could feel the points digging into her fingers. It was like seeing a ghost. It was _exactly_ like seeing a ghost.

“Leah, say something. Please.”

Leah had cried for this man. She had mourned his death for _years_. And yet here he was, alive. Solid. Hair that she had touched, lips that she had kissed.

“I… I have to show you to your room,” she said, raising a limp hand in the general direction of the stairs. Behind her, the noise of the gathered Alphas pressed in on her. She felt a sudden, searing pain in her head and she pressed her palm to her temple. Strangely, he mirrored the movement, his other hand reaching out for her and she hurriedly took a step back, not remotely prepared for a dead man to touch her. “ _No_. Come on.”

She felt like she was navigating her way through a fever dream. People kept getting in her way – smiling, laughing, greeting her – and she had to shakily weave through them, a sick heat of miscomprehension prickling her scalp.

 _How, how, how,_ she kept thinking. _How was this possible?_

She grabbed hold of the end banister of the stairs like it was a buoy and pulled herself up, the staircase wavering in front of her. Step, step, step, she thought, focusing on the action of climbing, looking down at her heels on the polished wood of their staircase. Turn. Step, step, step. Turn.

Upstairs, it was a little quieter. Better. She sucked in a deep breath and waited for him, watched the top of his dark head get closer, and then started moving down the hallway to the end of the corridor. Her knees were shaking.

The door to the guest room was open. She stood in the doorway, leaning against the door jamb and stared at the bed.

She felt him stand behind her. “Leah,” he whispered. Every hair on her body stood up on end.

 _I can’t do this_ , she thought. Out loud, she said, quickly, “This is your room. The bathroom is through there. Please don’t go into any other rooms on this floor. Come downstairs whenever you’re ready.”

She ducked around him, not looking. Her fingertips brushed her door as she passed it, she had a fleeting thought of ducking inside, of locking the door behind her, of hiding. Forever.

Instead, Leah walked down the stairs to join the party.

*

Asil had set out that evening to monitor her behavior. So dazed was she, it took her nearly two hours to work it out. She had once, when he came to Bran to be killed, made the mistake of reciprocating his bold flirting with some equally bold flirting of her own. He hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t liked it at all and had been vicious in his response. When she had told Bran, he had pursed his lips and said that Asil was old-fashioned.

“But he knew I was mated to you, so why did he flirt with me in the first place if he didn’t want me to flirt back?” she had asked, thoroughly confused.

“Because you’re beautiful and he wanted to test you,” Bran had said, with all the emotion of someone commenting on the weather. “And you failed him.”

So now Asil tested her all the time. “Handsome, isn’t he,” he’d say in passing to her, when she moved on to speak to someone new at the party. He’d loiter at the edge of her conversations, make suggestive comments about Leah’s ‘appetites’, small jokes at her expense. People were polite because he was terrifying – the Moor was one of the werewolf bogeymen – but she saw some of her older acquaintances were curious, giving her questioning glances. She met these with a confident smile and responded to any of Asil’s comments in the bored way she tried to use with him all the time.

Tonight, he didn’t scare her. Little did he realize it, but Asil saved her that evening. She had never, ever been so grateful for his hateful sniping in her life. It gave her something to focus on, other than the tall, dark presence of Levi in the corner of her eye. Always in the corner of her eye. 

For light relief, she drifted over to Anna and Kara, who had deliberately located themselves by the door of the kitchen so that the canapés came past them first. Someone had opened the sliding doors out onto the decking and a cool breeze tickled the open back of her dress.

“It’s a really nice evening, Leah,” Anna said, warmly. She had a pile of little profiteroles and was popping them into her mouth. “I have met so many people that I’ve only ever spoken to on the phone.”

It normally annoyed her, Anna’s integration with Bran’s business. Tonight, she didn’t let it. “Good, that’s good. Oh, no, thank you,” Leah said, when Kara held out her own plate to her. She suspected if she ate something her body would instantly reject it. She still had a headache, which was a rarity and no doubt brought on by the extreme stress of the evening.

“You look a little pale,” Kara said, frowning. “Is everything okay?”

Leah was not often moved to public displays of physical affection but Kara, wearing the green dress Leah had given her, looked so innocently concerned that she slung an arm about her and kissed her forehead. Besides, it was good to to reinforce the message that Kara belonged to the Marrok. Her arm around Kara said: _This one is mine. She is protected_. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Thank you for asking.”

This was a mistake. Leah saw Anna’s eyes flare. “I just had a small surprise,” she admitted to them both, summoning a smile. Anna could tell Charles that without there being an immediate repercussion.

Anna put two and two together. Because she was so _clever_. “The guy from your father’s pack?”

“Yes. I’m going to get a drink, I think,” Leah thought. She looked around for Bran but he was nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t even begun to think about how she was going to tell him.

*

She couldn’t tell him. Nearing midnight, long after the caterers had gone, some fool Changed and set off a chain-reaction, sending an enormous pack of wolves haring off into the forest. Bran, Charles and Sam chased after them to keep things under control, agreeing to leave Anna and Leah with the few human women who had stuck it out to the end. Anna because she wanted to, because she cared about the human women who couldn’t run with their husbands, Leah because she knew Levi had gone with them and honestly couldn’t think of anything worse than running beside a dead wolf as well.

Once the women had given in and gone home, knowing their husbands wouldn’t be back for hours, Leah drove Kara home and walked her into her apartment. She noticed it was significantly cleaner than when she had last visited.

“Afraid someone would be lying in wait?” Kara said, taking off her heels and, because Leah was watching, put them tidily away.

Leah was. “When I was your age,” she said, lightly, glancing behind curtains, casually opening cupboards, checking the windows, “my room was checked every night.”

“Sounds like your pack was pretty unscrupulous.”

“It was a different time, let’s put it that way. Sleep well.”

She drove back with the windows down, in case she could hear the howls. They had mapped a few trails together for runs such as these, keeping the potential sightings to a minimum, but also keeping the wolves from their remaining wildlings. She heard no one, which means the Cornicks had succeeded in keeping the wolves in some kind of order.

At home, the house was empty and the door of the guest room was still open. She changed into pajamas, brushed her teeth, and then found herself standing in the open door. Levi’s battered duffel was on the chair, unzipped, a couple of items of clothing tossed on to the backrest. There was a comb on the dresser, some loose change and an ancient Nokia cell phone. If it had been anybody else, she would have snooped with confidence. It was her house; she had no qualms about investigating her guests. It would have pleased her to annoy a female by trespassing this way, knowing they could do or say nothing about it.

But Leah couldn’t do that to Levi, couldn’t let him know she had touched his things. She closed the door and went to Bran’s room.

*

It was dawn by the time Bran returned. She woke, astonished he had been out for so long on the first night of the conclave, and a little envious. She loved a hunt.

“Did you at least get some sleep outside?” she asked, as he undressed by the bed.

Bran shook his head, tossed his clothes in the direction of the chair. “Couple of hours. If that.” He climbed in and she snuggled close. He was hot from the change and she knew she felt cool to him because he briefly squeezed her tightly and sighed into her hair, then rolled away, bunching the pillow under his head.

She thought about telling him about Levi, about their relationship, and she had practiced various ways of starting the conversation but he was asleep in moments and needed to be up again in two hours.

It wasn’t that important, she told herself, missing the feeling of his arms around her. It was all in the past. Wolves like Bran didn’t care about the past.

*

Leah was up before Bran, which in a normal situation was unusual. If they slept together, he was always gone before she woke. She was reluctant to leave him in bed – asleep he always looked endearingly approachable, his lips pursed a little – but she had check the house before the caterers arrived, in case anyone had decided to sleep over in their wolf form. That morning, there were no wolves but she found a few items of clothing in the back yard, which she folded into individual piles and put in the laundry room.

Annoyingly, the headache returned and she pulled out the first aid kit from the downstairs guest bath, knowing it had painkillers. They didn’t work the same way they did for humans but she had always found that they took the edge off if she took a significantly larger dose. 

Bran came down just as she was chasing the pills with a large glass of water in the kitchen. “Is there food yet?” he asked, slightly petulantly. He allowed her to see how grumpy being tired made him. Everyone else got the Bran who was omnipotent, the _bon vivant_ who had lived longer than many of them combined and who could exist on a couple of hours of sleep. 

“The caterers have just pulled up.” She nodded to the fruit basket. “Have a banana in the meantime.”

Bran did, leaning against the kitchen island with her. His hair was slightly mussed. She wanted to kiss him; she always did. “Levi Cornelissen. Your father’s second. Then and now,” he said, shortly, putting an end to any thoughts of the affection she felt for him with an abrupt return to reality.

“Yes,” Leah managed.

Bran grunted. “I thought he was dead.”

“So did I.”

They were interrupted, then. Andrew pushed in through the kitchen door, smiling. “Morning!” he greeted them both, brightly. “How are we all? Not nursing a hangover, I hope?”

“He is, I’m not,” Leah said because, in a way, he was. “We’ll get out of your way.”

*

In a way, it was good that the conclave itself left no time for talking – to either Bran or Levi. From the moment the first Alpha pair arrived, Bran was performing his role as Marrok, all his attention on them. He used every opportunity to get to know his people better, turned on the charm when he needed to, turned on the fear when he had to. By 9am, almost everyone was in the pole barn except Leah who had organized cleaners to come and do a quick run-around of the living areas before the first break - they weren’t from her usual agency so she wanted to supervise.

Tag, who was on duty, patrolling, stopped by to see if there was anything going spare from breakfast. She gave him two croissants. “Mm, still warm,” he said, appreciatively. Leah agreed; they smelt delicious. She, as of yet, hadn’t been able to eat anything. Her headache was gone, though she still felt strangely fragile.

“No trouble?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I can see there were a couple of fights last night.”

“Know who?”

“Scents not familiar to me yet.”

She thought about the clothes in the laundry and told him. He agreed to check them out. “Did the run go past any of the wildlings last night?”

“No one was disturbed. I checked this morning.”

Of course he had. She went inside and found him another pastry and sent him on his way. 

*

Leah joined the talks in the pole barn mid-morning, taking her seat beside Bran, the hay prickling her through her jeans. Most of the women who had attended before had dressed appropriately, like Leah, in pants and a blouse, but there were a few dresses, noticeably on women whose husbands had a proprietorial hand resting on their legs. Perhaps they had dressed up for them. 

She glanced at Bran, wondering if she would have liked it if he put his hand on her leg like that. Probably. Definitely. Her headache came back with a searing sudden pain and she hurriedly looked at the ground, swallowing down over the nausea that came with it.

Though she hated the idea, she would have to speak to Sam. She had only experienced this level of discomfort when she knew she was suffering from a concussion. _It’s probably just stress_ , she reminded herself. Conclave alone was stressful. Levi – her heart flipped – _he_ was stressful.

Bran’s finger touched her knee, briefly. _Okay?_ it seemed to say. She nodded, still staring at the ground.

*

Sam didn’t like her but he put that aside with professionalism. He asked her a few obvious questions, whether she had been hit by anyone, anything, to which she said no.

“Like you said, it’s probably just stress,” he said, though he was frowning at her. He tilted her head, looked in her eyes. His hands were warm and felt strong, capable. He had his father’s hands. She had the strangest urge to lean against him.

“I’ve been taking painkillers. Is that all right?”

“They won’t do much. Try drinking more water. Can you lie down in the dark? Maybe over lunch?”

“I’ll try.”

“Tell me if it’s still bad this afternoon.”

It was still bad that afternoon but there wasn’t a chance to speak to him because one of her topics – fosterings, or ‘secondments’ as they were now calling them - was on the agenda. She took another handful of painkillers and drank some more water. She’d managed twenty minutes in Bran’s room over lunch and eaten four grapes. She suspected not eating wasn’t helping but the very idea of food made her stomach roil.

The secondments idea went down well. Many of the wolves remembered it and had positive thoughts. The newer wolves thought it sounded modern and a good way of knitting the community together.

“Ah, I remember when young Leah was fostered in our pack,” Greengrass recalled, with genuine fondness. Leah braced herself, however. “Caused me trouble on a daily basis. I’m not sure my son has ever been the same.”

There it was, she thought, baring her teeth at him and then to Nicolas, who was two rows behind his father and had his face in his hands. “Well, if he would insist on hiding under my bed, then I wouldn’t have had to throw him through the window so many times…”

There was some laughter, particularly from Greengrass, who had thought his young son’s mooning over Leah was particularly amusing. Leah, of course, had not. Neither, from the looks of it, did Nicolas’s mate.

Bran was smiling placidly, however. “Motion passed, then,” he said, giving Leah a proud look, acknowledging that she had done this. He liked when her ideas worked. The few that she had.

Leah was happy. She had earmarked three potential packs for Kara already and planned to spend the rest of the conclave introducing her to the Alpha females. If she was going to be fostered well, it would only be if she had the approval of the female. That was a lesson Leah had learnt early on before she had fought her way to the top herself and no longer needed it.

*

That evening, they set out an enormous buffet outside, with food appearing and disappearing at phenomenal speed. Leah had, for the purposes of supplying the quantities she knew their people would consume, exaggerated the numbers to the catering team and she knew Andrew had a team working off-site during the day as well to ensure they had enough.

“The festoon lights are a nice touch,” Millicent said to Leah, casually, in a way that suggested she would rather have died than compliment her.

“Thank you,” Leah said, taking full credit.

Millicent nibbled on her fourth hog roast sandwich. “Heard about Sage.”

“Yes.”

“Fucking witches,” her friend said.

“Fucking witches,” Leah agreed wholeheartedly. She knew everyone was interested in the witch conversation in the next day’s agenda. There were a few packs – her father’s included – who had black witches on retainer. It was going to be a difficult discussion. Bran wanted all packs to sever their ties with witches whilst the Hardestys were dealt with.

Bran came over with a full plate of food. “Hello, Millicent,” he said, handing the plate to Leah. “Thank you for your sensible comments this afternoon.”

Leah managed not to sneer as Millicent preened and waggled the plate at him. “What do you want me to do with this?” she asked, testily. He didn’t _have_ to compliment other women in front of her, she thought.

“Eat it,” he said, simply, walking away.

“The last time my mate brought me food,” Millicent reflected, taking a home fry from Leah’s plate, “I’d just disemboweled someone for him.”

Leah _was_ touched – was stunned, in fact - because he didn’t often show her such care. But then it also meant Bran had been watching her more than she would like. She wondered if Sam had told him about her headaches. Actually, she realized, she _knew_ Sam would have told him. They didn’t keep secrets, that family. 

“The food’s excellent as well,” Millicent said, equally unwilling. “I honestly couldn’t fault it and I’ve really tried to.”

Leah snorted. “You’re such a bitch.”

Her friend nudged her shoulder against Leah’s. “Right back at you.”

*

Levi sought her out, waiting until she had gone to the garage alone to find tomato juice, a request from Greengrass. “We do need to talk, Leah.”

“We do not.” She was crouched down, vulnerable, with her back to him. Her headache had returned minutes before and she had taken another handful of pills, wishing it would allow her to at least enjoy part of her evening. She was hoping Changing later would help. She pulled a full bottle of tomato juice and stood.

She swayed, alarmingly, her vision greying around the edges.

Levi caught her elbow. “ _This_ is what we need to talk about,” he said.

His eyes, silver for his wolf, flashed at her. “You’ve got a nose bleed,” she murmured, as a trickle of dark liquid trailed down his upper lip. He was such a beautiful man, she thought sadly. She’d always thought so. Always thought they had made a beautiful pair together. 

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, already dashed with blood and wiped it away. “Yes. It started as soon as I got here. I overheard the doctor son telling your _mate_ ,” this, he spat, “you’ve been having headaches.”

“From _stress_ ,” Leah said. She realized he was still holding her elbow, his thumb rubbing against her bare skin. She pulled her arm from him and grabbed the tomato juice, damp with condensation. She pressed it against where he had touched her.

“Leah, please, we need to talk. Is there somewhere we can go? Privately?”

Her wolf, normally a quiet voice in the back of her mind, murmured its dissent. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Levi,” she whispered, checking the door. The catering team were in the kitchen, tidying and putting in some prep for the next morning. The rest of the conclave were still in the back. There was going to be another run that night, an organized one. Juste and Tag had set the trails that afternoon.

“You’re not in the slightest bit curious about what happened?” he demanded.

She was. “No.”

“Don’t lie to me, Leah. You promised me you would never do that.”

Leah pressed her lips together, holding back her retort. Expecting her to keep promises for a dead man was a bit much but he was right. Her father had sent him here; he was clearly up to something. She owed to Bran to find out what that was and deal with it, without bothering him with her own problems on top of everything else. “We might be able to manage something tonight, during the run. I know where the trails are and where everyone won’t be. Head north, to the river, and wait for me. We can speak there. _Briefly_. I’ll be missed, otherwise.” 

“That’s fine.” He held his hands out and backed away from her.

*

Leah went to stand with Anna, hoping her Omega sweetness would calm her. After not responding to any of Anna’s inclusive comments, she seemed to understand what Leah wanted and instead kept the conversation around her going without involving Leah. Since it was Asil, Tag and Charles, they were all happy to ignore her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Leah watched Levi talk to a few wolves he would have known, back when he had been part of her father’s pack. He was one of a handful who had known her when she was human. She had loved him as any young girl would have done – this tall, handsome young-looking man whose job had been to protect her. She had loved him and, before she had been changed, she had tormented him. Teased him. And, finally, after she had spent months wearing down his defenses, he had allowed her to seduce him, because she had wanted him and she had always got what she wanted, why would this be so different?

Levi had been her first, and only, as a human. In the months that followed that first, excruciatingly gentle time, they had carefully continued an affair, meeting in secret, enjoying each other’s bodies. Now, of course, Leah knew she had been _extremely_ lucky not to get pregnant – she had been utterly ignorant and Levi had been a man of the era.

When her father had changed her, on her eighteenth birthday, she had expected her desires to be different, that the wolf would have transformed her into a powerful woman who was beyond such things. Instead, she had wanted Levi just as much as before, if not more. So, again, Levi had been her first, and this time they were more equally matched in strength. _That_ had been different. Her passion for him had been all-consuming and his in turn for her. 

Of course, her father found out. Or perhaps he had always known and had waited until she was a werewolf and could punish her properly. She had never been sure. He had beaten her, broken her – she didn’t leave her bed for months afterwards – and executed Levi.

Except he _hadn’t._

*

Before the run, Leah ordered Juste to take Kara home. He bowed. “Of course, my lady.”

“Don’t call me that,” she told him, not for the first time. “Check every corner of her apartment before you leave her there. Check the windows and the locks. I want absolute assurance that no one has been there.”

“Very wise,” he said.

It _was_ but his approbation made her feel ridiculous, like an over-protective mother. “Oh god, go already.”

Leah was nervous. A clandestine meeting with an ex-lover on her husband’s property was bad enough without the inevitable sense of doom that accompanied the information Levi was going to impart. She had initially imagined that her father had sent him here to torment Bran but now realized it was nothing of the sort. He’d done it simply to torment her.

She Changed upstairs, in her room, and trotted down to join the remaining wolves, claws clicking on the wood of the floors. To control the numbers, they had been divided into groups, each following different trails. Levi had been in the first group, Bran’s group, so would have left earlier. She was the last to give a cursory sniff to the scent rag that smelt of Tag and Juste as well as the mix used for the scent trail and the last to leave the back yard and join the hunt. She followed the trail for a little while, repressing the wolf’s eager desire to follow the others, to try to take over and lead, until she was sure she was well behind everyone else, and then she went north.

It was a thirty minute run to the river and she gave herself that time to enjoy it. She loved to run, in wolf and in human form. She loved to _chase_ , too, and would have loved to participate in the run with the other wolves. It had been the one part of the conclave she had been looking forward to. Perhaps she could rejoin after her discussion with Levi.

She found Levi’s trail and Changed back when she knew she was close to the river. She hadn’t thought to bring something to wear but when she emerged, she found him sitting on a protruding rock in sweat pants and holding a sweater. He tossed it to her, not without looking at her intensively first in the way only a man who had known her body intimately could.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling the sweater over her body, hiding the flush that his looking at her had provoked. It just about covered her behind and smelt strongly of him. She had worn his clothes before. She had rolled in sheets that smelt like him. It was almost overpoweringly nostalgic. “How did you bring these out here?”

“I hid them last night. Just in case I needed them.”

Ridiculous though it was, she felt immeasurably better with the layer of material. Nudity was accepted but she was the wife of the Marrok and she had been intimate with this man. She went to sit near him and stopped when the headache that had been pushed back by the Change roared to the front again. She clutched her head, just as he simultaneously did. “What—“

“I thought it was just me,” he growled, getting up and walking further away from her. Stumbling. “But it’s not. She fucked it up.”

It was a bit better now there was more distance. She took a deep breath. “Fucked what up?”

“The witch who separated us. Severed the bond. I knew I was damaged but when I heard you had mated again I thought you had escaped it. I wish I’d—”

“ _Wait_. Stop, Levi, stop.” She pressed her hands to her eyes, the information too much to comprehend with the pain in her head.

The wolf did not want to hear Levi’s words. The wolf scratched and clawed at Leah, raking claws across the raw meat of her brain. She felt her knees hit the ground and she crouched there, still.

Levi stopped talking. For a few moments, Leah wrestled with her wolf, trying to calm her. “We had a bond?” she asked. As soon as she said the words out loud, she knew they were true. Of course they’d had a bond.

“You didn’t—know that?”

She hadn’t until just that second. Every memory she had of him was still tainted by the excruciating pain of his death at the hand of her only parent. “I— I loved you,” she acknowledged because that was all she was prepared to do at the moment. “I knew that.” She glanced up at him – it was too much, those devastated eyes, that drawn face – and then back down again. “Explain it to me again.”

“When your father found out about us, he beat you half to death.”

 _That_ she remembered. “And I thought he had killed you. He _told_ me he had killed you. I mourned for you.” _Months_ of crying. It had hindered her recovery. She hadn’t slept, hadn’t been able to eat. It had been as if a hole had opened up inside of her and her very life-force was leaking from it. 

“No. His witch had told him she could break the mating bond between us and you would still be useful. He agreed.”

Leah groaned and pressed her forehead to the ground. It was cool. “I don’t remember that,” she said.

Her father’s witch. A mating bond? If it was true, it was an _abomination_. If her father had agreed to it… she wanted to be sick. She dug her fingers into the dirt, dragging her nails into rock and soil. “ _Hell_. Is this why it hurts? Because she did it wrong?”

She hadn’t even known ‘it’ was possible. A consensual mating bond was until death. Two spirits tied to one another. 

“I think so. I know I haven’t been able to form any bonds since. But you have.”

Leah nodded and even that slight movement hurt. “Yes.” And she could feel it now, the reassuring sense that was Bran, miles away from her. He controlled their bond tightly, for her sake as well as his. He had once told her she would not enjoy being tied to him without his control.

She heard Levi swallow. “I need help, Leah. And, now, so do you.”

*

There was a part of her, the prominent selfish part of her, that just wished Levi would leave, that even if he was broken, her father had broken him, she would be fine so long as he wasn’t near to her. She _had_ been fine. Before.

She walked back to the house, alone, and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. If a witch had broken them, they would need a witch to fix them. She had said she would see what she could do. She had asked him to stay away from her in the meantime.

_Bran would be able to do something._

She had absolute faith that he could, or at least would know what to do. If there was anyone she trusted with her mind, it was Bran. But first _she_ wanted information so that she could sort through her own thinking. Sometimes it was overpowering, Bran’s intellect, his knowledge. It dwarfed hers.

Leah pulled off Levi’s sweater and tossed it onto the chair by the window, then thought better of it and shoved it into her wardrobe. She didn’t think Bran would be going through her bedroom but in the circumstances having another man’s clothes lying around wouldn’t be in her best interests. She had known women who were killed for such infractions.

She went to shower for a long time, trying to wash the filth of the news from her, and when she came out, she found her cell phone and scrolled through the contacts to Tom Franklin. His wife was a white witch. Charles and Anna had dealings with her and Bran trusted her, in so much as he trusted a witch.

She sent a message quickly. _It’s Leah Cornick. Would Moira be available to consult with me on a private matter?_

It was late; she didn’t expect a response so she was surprised when her phone beeped. _Now?_

 _Now_ , she wrote, then amended it to be, _Now would be appreciated_. She found text messages were often a better medium; they allowed her to think before she spoke.

The phone rang.

“This is Moira.”

Leah had never met Moira and all she knew of her was that she was blind and her magic smelt pure and clean. Leah could hear she was on speaker phone, that they were in a small room with heavy furnishings, possibly a bedroom. She went to sit at her dressing table. “Hello, Moira. And hello, Tom. I hope you are both well. Thank you for taking the time for this call,” she said carefully.

“It’s no problem. I take it everything is okay with Angus and the conclave?”

“As far as I’m aware. They’re enjoying a hunt.” If she listened, she could hear – faintly – the howls of the chase, carried on the wind.

“That’s good.” Moira’s voice was curious, wondering why she had been called if not for an emergency.

“I will try to be brief. My question is regarding a hypothetical scenario.” She wasn’t that much of an idiot – she knew anything she said to Moira and Tom would get back to Angus. She had a limited window before Angus told Bran of her conversation or – if she was lucky – respected her enough to speak to Leah first.

“Go on.”

“Would it be possible for a witch to sever a mating bond? Without the consent of either party.”

She heard Tom suck in a double-breath and Moira was silent for a long moment before saying, in a voice changed with emotion, “That’s barbaric.”

Leah was in complete agreement. “Mmm. But would it be possible?”

Moira remained silent for a little more. Leah listened hard, trying to tell if she was communicating with her mate in any way. “It… may be. I would question whether the werewolves would survive it, however.”

Leah lined up her hair brush set. “You think they would die.”

“Yes, or potentially be _magically_ neurologically damaged in some way. The mating bond is a very particular kind of magic. It links the spirit but also the human. It’s intricate.”

Neurological damage. She closed her eyes. “What would be the symptoms of such damage?”

“Oh, all kinds of things.” Moira blew out a breath. “They could be physical - headaches, loss of sight, memory loss – that sort of thing. But they could also be mental. Difficulty in changing, for instance. Potentially problems with other bonds – pack bonds, or forming a new mating bond, yes, that might be a challenge. Emotional problems.”

“Could the damage manifest differently in each?”

“I should think it would. You would have to sever the bond at each end, like having an operation. Each person is unique, as well, in how they manifest the bonds in the metaphysical sense. And if more care was taken with one than the other, the damage would be different.”

Leah nodded. “I see. So is there any reason why—“

“Hypothetically,” Moira added, pointedly.

“Yes, indeed, hypothetically. Is there any reason, hypothetically, you can think of as to why a person would choose to sever the bonds rather than, say, kill one of the werewolves? If one was considered more important than the other. The bond would break with a death, wouldn’t it?”

Moira ‘hmmm’ed. “Well, there have been cases where the death of one has led to the death of another. Some mating bonds are stronger than others. It’s not a guarantee that the living werewolf would survive that.”

Leah hadn’t known that. Her only experience with a mating bond was through Bran and she knew it was not standard. Perhaps just because of who she was mated to, perhaps now because of her.

“Is that… a longevity thing?” Leah asked. Had Bran survived Blue Jay Woman’s death purely because in relative terms they had not been mated that long and the bond was not so strong? In which case, her bond with Levi would have been fairly nascent, too.

Or was is simply that Bran himself was just stronger?

She wished she had been allowed to ask him questions, before. But his mate and his mating before Leah had been off-limits, always. She had strongly got the impression he thought Leah didn’t deserve to talk about her.

“Yes, often, more established bonds can be stronger. But sometimes new ones, too - just one of those magical mysteries,” Moira sighed, as if said mysteries of pack bonds were something she thought on a great deal and caused her frustration.

Tom, who had remained silent, added, “The other reason would be, in your hypothetical scenario, that both werewolves were important for some reason. Could that be the case?”

Was Levi important to her father? He had been his second for nearly a century before Leah was changed. An important member of his pack, for sure, but was it more than that? He hadn’t been blood. He hadn’t been good enough for Leah; he had made that clear.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Leah said slowly. “Hypothetically.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out. Her headache had ebbed. “What would happen if the same two werewolves came into close proximity? After?”

“I don’t really know. Everything really is, um, hypothetical at this point. I guess it depends on how successful the operation had been. Best case, nothing. Worst case – I can only imagine it might cause some bad mental reactions. Maybe even re-trigger the mating bond.”

Leah felt – and saw in her reflection - her eyes flare in alarm. “ _What?_ ”

“Hypothetically,” Moira said hurriedly. “And assuming neither has bonded to anyone else in the meantime.”

She drooped in her chair, resting her head in her hand. “You can’t have two mating bonds.”

“No,” Moira said, firmly. “ _That_ I’m sure of.”

“Well, thank goodness for that,” Leah said, thinking there ought to be a _book_ on this, somewhere. She rubbed her temples. “Is there – would there be anything that could be done to, to, fix the damage?”

“Without, ah, seeing the damage, it would be hard for me to answer that.”

Reasonable, Leah thought. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Sure thing. You’ve asked some interesting, hypothetical questions. Hypothetically, your mate may also be able to answer more. Maybe even be able to help. I’m here if you need me, though. Bran and I have worked together well before.”

“Yes. I’ll speak to him when he returns.” If he returned, she amended. It was now well past midnight. “I would appreciate it if you feel the need to speak to your Alpha regarding this conversation, you could wait a few hours so that I have time to do so. Or better yet, send him to ask me directly.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Tom said, making her no promises.

*

Leah waited until 3am before giving in to sleep. She had heard neither Levi or Bran return, the former had been a relief and she suspected he would stay out all night, avoiding her at her request. She curled up in the middle of Bran’s bed so that she would be sure to wake when he climbed in beside her but when she opened her eyes a mere handful of hours later, he still hadn’t returned. 

She sat up, annoyed. It wasn’t unusual for Bran to stay out all night on a hunt. She had done it herself. But it was particularly annoying when she needed to speak to him.

Rather than change from her pajamas, she left the bedroom, looking for any evidence that he had returned at all. Or anyone for that matter. The guest room door was closed but the room was empty. So was the living area and the kitchen. There were no clothes scattered around her back yard for her to pick-up. In an hour’s time, the caterers would arrive to set up for breakfast, cutting short her available time.

Sighing, Leah gave in and dialed Charles’s home phone. He picked up – of course he did. _He_ went home to Anna. “Leah? Everything okay?”

“Do you know where your father is?” she asked, sharply, prepared to be jealous.

“No, he wasn’t in my group. I heard him, though,” Charles said. “He was having a pretty good time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still out there, sleeping it off.”

It was as she had suspected. 

“Guess it’s good that Sam is opening with the female werewolves this morning and I’m doing the other break-out session. Da can have a lie-in.”

Yes, of course. Most of the Alphas wouldn’t be arriving until later today but their women would be. That meant she wouldn’t see Bran until the mid-morning break, at the earliest. _She_ wanted to attend the session with Sam. She realized in all likelihood Bran had known he was going to stay out all night and hadn’t felt the need to tell her.

That was Bran all over, she thought.

She heard a car pull up in the drive and recognized it for Sam’s truck. She hung up on Charles without saying goodbye.

*

Itching though she was to speak to Bran, the session with Sam and the other Alpha females was good. It was actually quite emotional as Sam took them through a presentation with the tentative early findings.

One of the side affects of there werewolves coming out, one which Bran hadn’t foreseen, was that now any surrogacies carried out in the US – traditional or gestational - meant that the parents had to declare whether either, or both of them, were werewolves. There had been a massive decline of surrogates and therefore the success rate of this, given that the success rate of any surrogacy was halved if the fetus was a werewolf. Charles had attempted to throw money at the problem, for Anna, to no avail. It had become a political issue.

It was possible to try outside of the US where the legal restrictions were laxer but Bran had put his foot down. The potential scandal was too big, he felt. Leah had privately thought if it had been his desire to have a child, he wouldn’t have given two hoots but he didn’t desire a child and certainly not with her. 

Sam’s presentation looked at three areas. The first was identifying whether a fertilized egg carried the werewolf gene prominently. From a scientific side, he believed they would be able to successfully determine this in another thirty to forty years. To many of the women in the audience, that wasn’t that long, even if Sam heavily caveated it. “By then, I would presume we will be in a different state with regards to the law. Perhaps even some of our human wives and mates might consider being surrogates themselves if it didn’t come with the potentially high emotional toll.”

At her side, Anna sighed longingly.

Sam continued. “Next up, and tied to each other, is the ability for a werewolf fetus to be carried to a safe delivery. This one is, as you can imagine, the hardest nut to crack. The problem here is, as you all know, that a werewolf fetus will also feel the pull of the moon in vitro but cannot transform. In a surrogate, that leads to a miscarriage. In a werewolf mother, the same. We are on a long, slow path to understanding how we can put a stop to the pull of the moon which, as I’m sure you can see, has wider implications.”

He went on to explore those implications - the impact on the long-term development of the child and its spirit. For the werewolf community as a whole. If they could stop the pull of the moon on a fetus, how could it be applied to a werewolf mother so that she could carry a child to term?

But beyond that, what if the government got their hands on the technology? If a werewolf didn’t feel the pull of the moon for several months, what impact would this have on the wolf spirit? 

Leah wondered if Sam was going to give the same thoughtful talk to the Alphas as well or if he would change his approach.

The crux of the matter was that Sam didn’t think this was merely a scientific matter. And even if it was, there would need to _test_ it. And who would be willing to do that? Leah certainly wouldn’t, even if it was to bring Bran’s child into the world.

*

The women left the meeting in a somber mood which directly contrasted with the boisterous gathering in Leah’s back yard. Too boisterous, she thought, eyeing a few groups that had a distinct air of a blood-letting.

She grabbed Charles, who was standing to one side, eyeing the groups in a similar way to Leah. Her step-son exuded a cool air of calm that she knew, everyone here knew, could turn on a hairpin at at moment’s notice. “Where’s Bran?” she asked irritably, the noise, the laughter, the arguments, like a slap in the face.

Charles didn’t look away from his prey, even when his wife bounced to his side. “In his office.”

Good, she thought, making her way there. Hopefully he would be alone and amenable to interruption.

But Bran was not alone. As she knocked on the door, she heard Asil’s distinct voice and she automatically snarled. Just what she needed.

“Come in,” Bran said quietly.

She opened the door and knew, knew without a shadow of a doubt, that they were talking about her. Asil was looking smug and Bran was annoyed.

“I need to speak to you,” she said to her husband, ignoring Asil. “ _Alone_.”

Bran sighed and moved a folder on his desk to the side. “I don’t suppose this can wait?”

She ground down on her initial flare of irritation that her request was immediately deprioritized in his head. Did he think she had nothing valuable to say? “I think you will be angry with me if I do,” she said, honestly.

“Fine.” He jerked his head, dismissing Asil, who slunk out of the room with his smirk in place.

She barely waited for the door to close behind him before demanding, hands on her hips, “What did he have to say about me this time?”

Bran dropped into his desk chair and rubbed his hands over his face. “He says you missed the hunt last night to rendezvous with your father’s second.”

She rolled her eyes. “Did he really say ‘rendezvous’?”

“Yes. And did you?” He leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows.

“I did. I wouldn’t say it was a ‘rendezvous’,” she replied, easing herself into the chair opposite his desk. It was deliberately uncomfortable because during the conclave Bran didn’t want people to linger. “I agreed to meet him to discuss something. I waited to tell you about it but you didn’t come home.”

Bran turned to look away from her, towards his books. “I took advantage of the later start this morning.”

“It would have been nice if you’d told me you were going to do that.”

“It wasn’t planned.”

Her eye twitched, a sure sign that this was an almost-lie from her mate. “Since when do you make spontaneous decisions?” she snapped.

Leah realized the tone of the conversation was rapidly moving into argumentative territory. She was annoyed he hadn’t come home, to her. She was always annoyed when he did that. She didn’t think it was too hard for him to communicate his whereabouts to her, particularly when he knew in advance.

She wasn’t unreasonable; if plans changed, if he had decided mid-run, she didn’t expect him to find a phone. Or even, as she knew he could, speak to her mind-to-mind. But he did plan. And he considered telling her those plans to be unnecessary. And that, for Bran, was always going to be the end of the discussion.

But last night she had really wanted to speak to him. It was important. She wanted to talk to her mate and tell him what awful thing her father had done to her and for him to hold her as if he cared. Instead, he’d been off gallivanting around with no notion of her pain.

She _wanted_ to have a fight with him.

Bran turned to look at her and she suddenly rather thought he did, too. Only, the whisper of a dark shadow was beginning to form behind him and she knew she would not come out well in this argument. Or in any subsequent conversation.

Leah lowered her eyes and bit her bottom lip. “We can talk later,” she murmured, finally. “If now is not a good time.”

A long moment passed. “Perhaps that would be best. Tonight, after the dinner?” His tone was deceptively mild. She had always found him more frightening when he was quiet.

She nodded and very slowly stood, very slowly backed out of the room.

*

The first half of the witches discussion went about as well as could be expected – in that it went very poorly. Charles was forced to intervene at one point to stop actual bloodshed and Leah could see that Bran’s temper was right on the edge. He could force them all to obey but liked to pretend some had a say in the matter.

To make matters more personally awkward, Levi had clearly entered the pole barn at a different time than before and his seat was directly in her line of sight. Each time someone stood to speak in the middle of the room, she was looking at him. A headache formed at her temples at the sight of him. Manageable at this distance but still worrying. 

The topic being what it was, she found herself meeting Levi’s gaze with an uncomfortable frequency each time an Alpha mentioned a personal anecdote of the evil of witches. Leah had always thought she had a werewolf’s natural mistrust of witches, even the white ones like Moira. Now she had a fresh personal experience, one that she shared with Levi.

She looked down at her hands, clenched on her lap. On her left, Bran’s legs were relaxed, his hands clasped loosely between them. On his other side, Charles had moved Anna so that she might exude calming energy. It seemed he, too, had noticed how on edge Bran was.

Part of that would be the natural stress of the situation. But part of that would have been Asil, sowing seeds of misinformation. She longed to have the authority to punish him for tattling on her like a schoolboy. Asil had been in the second hunting group. He would have had to wait to for her to leave in order to accuse her of _rendezvousing_ with Levi. He had been _spying_ on her.

She knew Bran didn’t believe him. Or, at least, didn’t believe she was having some kind of an affair. But the situation would have annoyed him. His mate behaving inappropriately. The Moor feeling that he needed to tell on her. It was all too childish.

She sighed, out loud, accidentally interrupting a spiteful back and forth between the two Alphas that shared Ohio. 

“On that note,” Bran said, not looking at her, unlike everyone else, embarrassed for her break in protocol. “Let’s take a break.”

There were groans of relief as werewolves jumped off hay-bales and stretched out kinks from sitting still for a couple of hours.

Bran stalked off, exuding _leave me alone_ vibes so Leah stayed where she was. Kara drifted over to Leah, nervously glancing Bran’s way as he left. “That was interesting,” she said, dropping down into the space next to Leah. She was wearing jeans and Leah’s pale blue sweater, her hair plaited to one side. She smelt faintly of Leah and Bran and leaned into Leah’s side affectionately.

It would break Leah’s heart when Kara went away, she thought. She stroked her hand over Kara’s hair. “Are you enjoying yourself? Are you learning things?”

“So much, you wouldn’t believe. But mostly _a lot_ of stories about you,” Kara said, rubbing her hands on her knees gleefully.

Leah laughed and it felt, however briefly, good.

*

They broke for lunch and Leah decided not to return to the pole barn for the second half of the discussion. She asked Bran’s permission to skip it and he nodded as if this didn’t bother him, not asking why, and turned to speak to someone else as if she was irrelevant.

She really had annoyed him, she thought.

She took a palm full of painkillers and managed to eat a little lunch in the kitchen, the humans an almost-pleasant buzz around her, asking her how her ‘event’ was going but otherwise leaving her in peace. When she was sure everyone had returned to the barn, she left the kitchen.

Levi was there, on one of the couches, his eyes closed and a line down the middle of his forehead. His grey eyes opened when the door to the kitchen closed behind her. “Why aren’t you in the meeting?” she asked, her tone a little desperate. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted someone to hold her so badly.

He sat up properly. Today he was wearing a tight, white Henley which made him look more tanned and highlighted his broad shoulders and every dip and curve of his muscles. She had seen more than one female eye rove to him that day. Even in the preternaturally attractive crowd, he still stood out. Only Hauptman – who for obvious reasons hadn’t been allowed to attend - could rival him for classic good looks, she thought.

“I’m irrelevant to the discussion,” he sighed, palms out. “I can’t vote. Even if I could, you know what your father would vote for.”

They shared a snarl of revulsion.

“I really can’t be seen with you,” she said, sighing. “Someone saw us last night.”

“Saw us talking?”

“Saw us leaving together. They told Bran.”

Levi ran a hand through his hair, shaking it with his fingers. She had a visceral flash-back to running her own fingers through his hair. Lovingly. Of being loved by him. “Did you explain?”

“I—“ She stopped. It was too hard to explain. “Not yet. He knows it’s not what it might have appeared to be, that’s all that matters.”

“He trusts you.”

She nodded.

Levi blew out a breath and gestured to the open doors – an invitation. She followed him; it would be better if they were outside, visible. “That’s good. I’d heard some things.”

She narrowed her eyes as they took seats on the decking, in full view of anyone who came out of the barn. “ _What_ had you heard?”

“You still have a temper,” he said, smiling easily. Two dimples appeared in his cheeks, creases at the corners of his eyes. “I wondered. You’ve looked so regal these last couple of days. It was hard to imagine you losing it.”

“Yes, I still have a temper. A bad one,” she admitted because it was him and because he had seen her break her father’s antiques in a rage and because he had called her ‘regal’. “I try not to.”

He brushed this away. “You shouldn’t. You feel deeply, you always have.”

She absorbed this, thinking it had been a long time since anyone had implied anything other than negatives about her temper and the way it made her lose control. It felt… nice.

Leah relaxed back into her chair. Now that she knew what the headache was, she felt more at ease. She could compartmentalize it, like a broken leg. “I spoke to a witch last night. And I think – I hope – Bran will be able to help. If he can’t, perhaps the witch will. She’s a white witch,” she added, at Levi’s suspicious face. “Bran trusts her.”

“I can’t say I like the idea of a witch messing around with my head.” He rubbed his palms over each other. “But if you say she’s trustworthy, then fine.”

They lapsed into quiet.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” she said, softly. “But why, Levi? He could have killed you and the bond would have broken.”

Levi held his hands in front of him, looking at the palms. His hands were big, square, with long fingers. “If she could break the bonds between us, she could do it with whomever you were eventually mated to. I was irrelevant. A test case.”

Leah scoffed. “He planned to do that?”

“It was for the money, Leah.”

She frowned. “The money?”

“The numbers they were offering for you to marry them, or their sons. It was astronomical, for the time. He had played the game well, fostering you to the packs, dangling you like a carrot, making sure you looked every inch the lady but killed like an Alpha. All he would have to do would agree for you to marry one, on the proviso that the relationship only be sealed if a mating bond formed. Then he could simply break the bonds and deny it had happened. Sell you on to the next one.”

She had started shaking her head part way through his exposition. She stood up, unable to control her fidgeting limbs, the pounding in her head. “That’s… ridiculous.”

“Is it? He kept you deliberately in the dark about the mating bond, more than even I thought if you didn’t recognize what we had. All he’d have to do is insist your husband lived with the pack in Massachusetts and he’d have complete control. It would be their word against his.”

She kept shaking her head. But… some things, some things she knew. Nowadays it was more common for couples to marry for love rather than for the mating bond. When she had been Changed, however, the goal was always the mating bond, the final seal in a werewolf relationship. People didn’t marry for love. They married for security, for money, for power. A mated couple was a strength to their pack. An additional bond within the pack bonds. Leah had been taught that. She _believed_ in that. It had been part of the reason why she had wanted a sexual relationship with Levi, before she had been Changed. She had thought she would never have that kind of love for someone, as immature as it had been. She had wanted to be cherished like a human would be.

But the bond was _sacred_ , she thought. Everyone knew that. Even her father…?

“It didn’t work, Leah. It was too traumatizing. For me, at least.”

Leah lowered her head into her hands. “I didn’t leave my bed for months. I thought it was because he had beaten me too badly but maybe it was because of what she did.” She leaned on the balustrade, looking out into the trees.

She heard him sniff and he came to stand next to her, dabbing at his nose. It was streaming blood again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m truly sorry for what he did. Why on _earth_ did you come back?”

He grimaced. “I had to return two hundred years to the day. She bound me to him and he never expelled me from the pack. I had no choice. I mostly travelled around – here, Europe. Australia. But something was always pulling me back here, back to him, until it was impossible to ignore.”

Bran had outlawed that particular bonding, very early on. For fifty years, one of Charles’s main jobs was executing those who broke that law. “Did he know? That the bonds weren’t… quite broken? That sending you here was going to be like this?”

“No. I think he just thought seeing me would hurt you. He’s not as calculating as he used to be.”

The headache was unbearable now. Still, when he reached out to rest his hand on the back of her head, she turned and pressed her face into his chest. She didn’t resist when his arms came up and finally, _finally_ , someone held her, when her vision went grey, when she felt her legs give out.

*

Leah woke on her bed, alone. There was blood on her blouse and Levi had taken off her shoes, laid her between the sheets of the bed. Her bed, not Bran’s.

She sat up; it was getting dark. She could hear people milling around outside, the clink of forks on china. She had slept for several hours and dinner had already started. “Shit,” she muttered, going to her wardrobe to find something to replace the blood stained blouse. She tossed it into the bottom and noticed immediately that Levi’s sweater was no longer there.

She froze. Someone had taken it. Perhaps it had been Levi - though what would he have been doing, going through her wardrobe?

Was it Bran? Again – it wasn’t like him to go through her things. And why would he have done it?

 _Please don’t let it be Asil_ , she thought. Even that was a step too far for him, though, surely? Breeching her private space?

She didn’t know any more.

She changed her blouse for a loose silk shirt and then, just in case, changed her jeans for another, darker pair. She pushed her feet into her heels and hurried downstairs, heading straight for the kitchen. “Is everything all right?” she asked Andrew. “I’m sorry; I fell asleep.”

“Ah! There you are!” Andrew handed her a fluted glass of champagne. For the last night. “Not to worry. The young lady, Kara, has been helping out.”

Leah felt a wave of gratitude and pride. “Oh good. That’s good.”

She sipped her drink and went to find Kara, only saw she was with Asil by the BBQ and quickly diverted.

“There’s the lady I wanted to speak to!” Greengrass’s bombastic voice stopped her in her tracks.

She pasted on a smile. “Sir,” she said, because Greengrass had been ‘sir’ to her long before she had overtaken him.

She was kissed twice on each cheek. “A very nicely put together conclave, my dear. You do your father proud.”

The backs of Leah’s teeth hurt. “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” Over his shoulder, Nicolas was pulling faces at her. She wondered where his mate was – Selena tended to have ‘snits’ and stormed off for dramatic effect. Presumably she’d done just that. “Will you be opting in for any of the secondments?”

“I thought I would, you know. It’s been a long time. Your young lady, Kara, wouldn’t be looking for one?”

“She might be. We haven’t discussed it properly yet.” Leah smiled. Greengrass’s pack was on her list. He had always been kind to her. He had never made her feel like her father’s chattel, unlike some of the other Alphas. Which, she reasoned, was only fair given they had been expected to buy her.

“We have some good colleges,” Nicolas put in. At her raised eyebrows, he continued, “Selena would like the company. I know she misses younger female companionship.”

Leah rather thought Kara was more dominant than Selena and Selena would not like that. “Thank you, both.” She meant it, too. “I’ll let you know.”

Next, Leah did her duty and thanked Sam for the presentation, asked after the one she had missed in the afternoon. Once again, his professional interest overcame his personal dislike and he swallowed his mouthful and nodded. “Good, good. Different questions. You were right to do them separately.”

She tried not to preen but failed. Sam – more than Charles – was more critical of her and it was rare to receive a genuine compliment. “How were they different? Just out of interest.”

“The men were far more interested in the danger to their wives,” he said. “We also had lots of questions about surrogacy in the men’s group. They were really pushing Da to change his mind about going outside of the US.”

Leah was surprised. “Really?”

Sam nodded, pushed food around his plate with his fork. “I think he’s wavering, too.” The corner of Sam’s mouth quirked. “Sure there are no plans for another little baby Cornick?”

He had timed it perfectly for her to take a sip of her drink. She swallowed, but it was a near thing. “ _No_ ,” she said, darkly, turning on her heel and leaving him. 

She saw Levi and though they made eye contact, she avoided him, not desperate to faint into his arms again. Bran was in an intense discussion with two Alphas she knew had witches in their employ. If she went over, he would only ask her to leave. She couldn’t face that.

Leah turned and saw Kara join Anna and Charles’s conversation with the California alpha. Which meant Asil was alone and, perfectly, on the outskirts of the gathering.

She stalked over to him, grabbed his wrist – a risky maneuver she would never normally have attempted had she been on her own. “Did you go into my bedroom?” she hissed.

Asil wrenched his hand from her, his wolf flashing in his eyes. “What possible reason would I have to do that, I wonder?”

She drew on Bran’s strength. “Answer me,” she said, pouring power into her words.

Asil breathed out, sharply. In a battle, one on one, he was her dominant. But with Bran’s strength she would stand a chance. “No,” he said, through his teeth. “I have not.”

This was good, she thought.

“When you are told the truth of my circumstances, I will expect an apology from you,” she told him.

Asil sniffed and straightened his cuffs. “Never.”

She sneered and left him.

Her power play with Asil had not gone unnoticed but no more, she felt, than other disagreements that had happened. No conclave went without them. Millicent sidled up to her, smelling of rapidly consumed alcohol. In large quantities, there was a temporary buzz and Millicent was certainly buzzing. “You’re drunk,” Leah told her, impressed.

“Little bit, yeah. It’s wearing off so.” Millicent finished off her glass, quickly. “What’s going on with the Moor?”

“Nothing particularly.”

“That man is terrifying; I don’t know how you manage.”

Definitely drunk, Leah thought. Sober Millicent would never have implied there was something Leah could do that she couldn’t. 

*

She had showered and changed by the time Bran joined her in his bedroom. He glanced at her, waiting nervously on the edge of his bed. “May I shower first?” he asked, politely.

“Yes, of course.”

She had taken more painkillers because she had heard Levi go to the guest room, which meant he was close. It was _definitely_ worse when he was close. She hadn’t wanted to face Bran with a blinding headache. Or, more unfortunate, if she passed out in front of him.

Bran returned, still drying himself, and pulled on a pair of pajama pants she had given him. They were a little old now and frayed at the hems. She’d given him new ones but they stayed in the drawer. _I’ve got them the way I like them now,_ he’d told her, petulantly. Bran liked old things.

“First,” he said, sitting next to her – a gap of three feet between them – and staring ahead, “you should know that I went through your room. Not Asil.”

“ _You_ did,” she said. She couldn’t have been more astonished. She would have believed _Charles_ before him. 

“I did.” Bran sighed. “I’m not sure what came over me. When I came back from the hunt, I found your trail, going the wrong way. I followed it to where you met him. I— there was blood. I thought perhaps other things. I came back to the house and found his sweater in your room. It smelt of you both.” He blinked clear, untroubled eyes at her. “When Asil told me what he had seen, I had already worked it out.”

Leah didn’t know what to say. “You should have spoken to me immediately. I would have explained.”

“I’m aware,” he said mildly. “He has been in your room, since.”

“Yes, today—“

Bran made a noise. It wasn’t a human one, not a sound a human voice-box made. She shifted a little, nervous now for a different reason.

“I passed out on the terrace and he carried me up here,” she said, quickly. “He took off my shoes and put me under the comforter. That’s it.”

“And decided not to tell your mate that you had been taken ill. An interesting choice, I think.”

“I needed to be the one to explain it to you. Bran,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s nothing going on. I’m not having an affair, if that’s what you’re thinking. You know I wouldn’t –” _couldn’t_ , “—do that.”

“I know.” He sighed and rested his head in his hands. “I have nearly killed him twice this week, Leah.”

Her mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. She had to force herself to speak. “Bran, that’s – that’s—“ An enormous overreaction, she thought. And so unlike him. She chewed her bottom lip. “I apologize. I should have said something when he arrived on the first night. I should have tried harder to speak to you.”

He nodded but it wasn’t really an agreement, just an acknowledgement of her words. “I take it you were lovers.”

She nodded. “Before we met. My father, I thought, executed him because of it.”

“I had heard he had stolen money. Given your father’s grasping disposition, I didn’t question it. I had no need to, at the time, and it had been some years after the fact.”

Leah played with the drawstring that held her pajama shorts up. “I’m not sure how to tell you the next part without you getting angry.”

“ _Quickly_ ,” Bran suggested, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

“All right. I was young, when Levi and I were—“ Bran made the bad, not-human noise again. “Anyway. Levi claims that we were bonded. I don’t remember this. When my father found out, he had his witch sever the bond between us.”

Her mate sat bolt upright, head swivelling towards her.

She swallowed, feeling almost consumed by his blown-out gaze and dropped her eyes with difficulty. “Levi says it almost killed him. And I—my father had beaten me, very badly. I don’t remember the witch. I don’t remember much of anything except my father telling me he had executed Levi. I was bedridden for several months afterwards. I thought, I thought it was because of what my father had done, no one has ever, not like _that_ — but it’s possible that it was damage from the bond being severed. I spoke to Moira--“

Bran stood up abruptly and walked across the room to stare out of the window. Darkness started to spill from him.

 _Quickly_ , she thought, tying the drawstring around her finger. Like lancing a wound. “Moira seems to think this is possible. Hypothetically. When Levi arrived, I got headaches. He was getting nose bleeds. That’s why… why you could smell blood. He told me what happened. He hasn’t been able to form bonds with anyone since. Moira thinks the witch damaged him, perhaps me as well.”

It was getting colder in the room. They kept the air to a crisp temperature, as it was, but Bran was definitely bringing the temperature down a few more degrees. Unlike in her room, Bran didn’t have any decorative blankets on his bed that she could use. She wrapped her arms around her torso. “I was hoping you could help him,” she whispered. “And perhaps just check that everything is… all right with me? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with our bond but I’m not sensitive. Like you.”

She started shivering.

*

Bran did not move, did not speak for twenty minutes. She knew this because she started to count, after a while. She edged backwards on his bed until she was able to slide under the covers, where at least she could be warm.

She was relieved to have told him, comforted by the fact that he would know what to do, but the waiting for him to sort through his thinking, to control his anger, was wearing on her. 

Bran moved, finally, and closed the curtains with a brisk movement. He went to close the door to the bathroom, the door between their rooms. When he came to the bed, his face was neutral. He climbed in next to her and lay on his back, hands folded on his stomach.

She lay on her side, watching him.

“I’m going to kill your father,” he said, conversationally. “He has to die for what he has done.”

“You believe it.”

Bran nodded. “When we were mated, I noticed there was something different. I thought it was because of her.” He paused, as he always did, when he spoke of her, then he rolled onto his side to look at Leah. “I want to look at your bonds, first.”

She agreed and he reached out to cup her face. She closed her eyes.

They had done this once before because she had been curious and in the early days of their relationship he had sometimes behaved more like a teacher towards her. There was a way to sink into the metaphysical space, where pack bonds and mating bonds joined to the spirit. Leah had never been able to reach it on her own because, Bran claimed, she was too instinctual. She had no need to find it because her bonds came readily to her, almost more present in the real world.

With him, she was able to find that space, that otherness. When she opened her eyes, she looked around, curious.

“It didn’t look like this, before.”

“No,” Bran said, shortly.

They were standing in her bedroom. It was a little bit untidy, she thought, but it was her bedroom – the windows looking out to the view of the mountains, the fireplace, the chair where she read to get away from it all. She glanced down. “I don’t have this dress,” she mused. It was ivory, plain, and loose, and fell to just above her knees. He was wearing jeans and the brown checked shirt she liked; that made more sense.

He looked down at her. He looked displeased. “Quite a few things have changed.”

Leah lifted her arms, noticing them for the first time. “I don’t think they were chains before.” She shook them. They were heavy. Thick, gold and silver chains, with tight, woven links. They jangled.

Bran took a step back from her, narrowing his eyes as he looked at the chains that fell from her body. He started to survey the room, walking to look behind the curtains, pull open the bedside drawers. He opened her cupboards. It wasn’t just her clothes in there, but his as well. His shoes on the floor. She looked at the bed. It was rumpled, as if they had just got out and made it hurriedly. There were books on his side of the bed.

Not her room, she thought, pained. _Their_ room.

She swallowed her hurt and looked at the chains attached to her with manacles. Thick, metal cuffs, fused together, not with a lock-and-key. They were varying sizes. Different materials, she thought. Some gold, some steel, some stronger, some weaker. A big one, around her left wrist, was Tag’s. It chafed her skin because it was quite tight. Kara’s was more delicate, around her ankle. Loose. More of a bracelet than a manacle, she thought. Anna’s, too. There was a broken copper one on her other ankle, green and dull with age. Sage, she thought. There was blood on it. She noticed a lot of them were rubbing her skin raw.

Bran padded back to her. “Can you see ours,” he asked her.

She looked down at herself, then remembered what she was, how she would have done it if she wasn’t in this place, and simply _called_ for her bond to Bran.

Leah found it. It was wrapped around her neck. It was squeezing her. Reflexively, she started to gag and Bran grabbed her face. “No, no, don’t panic. Look at me. You don’t need to breath here.” He kissed her, to show her, and she sighed into his mouth. He didn’t draw back very far, just rested his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, Leah, I haven’t tended to you properly.”

“What do you mean?”

He stroked a hand down her arm, fingers bumping the different manacles that were clamped around it – her upper arm, just above and then below her elbow, the two around her wrist. “You’re very strong, I knew when I met you that you would be able to cope with the wolves in my pack. But they have been weighing you down for a long time and I have let them. I have let you take more than is fair.”

“I don’t feel it,” she said, lifting her arms. They _were_ heavy. She felt like they were pulling her down. “Only here and I don’t come here.”

“You wouldn’t notice. It will have happened slowly and you will have become used to it.” Bran rubbed the side of her head with his and she leaned into him, glorying in this affection. _Finally_ , she was being held by the right person, even if it wasn’t really real. “I let it happen.”

“That’s okay,” she said, shrugging. She was his help-mate. “It’s what I’m here for.”

He kissed her temple. “Thank you. Can you touch our bond for me?”

She reached up to grasp the chain that came from her throat. It ran from her fingers to a pool on the ground. It was a very long chain, silver colored but not the metal or even here it would have burned. Platinum, she thought. Precious. Tentatively, she brushed the metal she could feel around her fingers, around her neck. “It’s fused to my skin,” she whispered, feeling a flare of alarm.

“Yes, it’s pretty horrifying,” Bran said mildly, bending down to investigate their bond. “Your metaphysical construct is alarmingly literal. Ah, there we are.”

He lifted the chain in his hands to show her. “Can you see the frayed bits?”

“Yes.”

“Something is attacking it. My guess would be the old bond. I can’t see it here so it must be coming from Levi. It will be trying to reform.” He ran the bond through his fingers. “If we had a weaker bond, it might have succeeded but you, my darling, are made of stronger stuff.”

‘My darling’, she thought, was said to the bond. He had never called her that. Never called her ‘sweetheart’, ‘honey’, ‘my dear’ – all endearments she had heard him call other women. Anna. Mercedes. Kara. Even Sage. 

Leah felt the metal around her throat constrict. It _hurt_. She hurt. It was difficult to breathe again.

Bran frowned at her. “Leah?” She clawed at the metal around her neck. Bran dropped the chain in his hand and reached for her. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you. Look at me,” he said, bringing their faces close together.

It was better when he was touching her. “Don’t let go,” she pleaded, holding onto him.

He kissed her. “I will never let you go, Leah. Never.”

*

He led her out of the otherness until they were back in his bedroom, lying on his bed, face to face. She felt tired. Tentatively, she touched her throat and felt nothing but her own skin. “Apart from the bond, did it seem okay? There was nothing neurologically wrong with me?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong there. Well,” Bran said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “No repercussions from what that witch did to you _at your father’s behest_. I have asked Angus to bring Moira here. We will need to work on Levi. She will need me to guide her to fix that mess.”

She felt hope, for the first time. And the satisfaction of knowing that she had been right, that Bran was the solution. “So it can be fixed? I would like him to be able to bond with someone else.”

Bran rested his hand on her hip. “Did you speak to anyone else? About what was done?”

Leah shook her head. “Just Moira. Tom was there. I asked them to give me time to speak to you before they told Angus. He didn’t speak to you?”

“He tried to but I had other things on my mind.”

She yawned. What a week. “I’m sorry. I tried to not bother you. This week was already stressful enough.”

“I knew something was wrong. I ignored it because it was making me angry.” He slid his hand to the small of her back and pulled her towards him. “Those frayed edges are my frayed edges. We were being attacked, Leah, and I ignored it because I thought it was just jealousy.”

Leah closed her eyes, snorted. “You don’t get jealous.”

Bran laughed, suddenly, surprising her into looking at him. His eyes were sparkling with humor. “I don’t get jealous? Leah, I’m not _dead_.”

“No, you don’t get jealous,” she insisted. It had always been so _irritating_. She was the jealous one, spitefully so, all the time.

He kept laughing, rolling onto his front and pressing his face into the pillow between them. His hair brushed her nose, his body a heated line pressed against hers. “How – how do you imagine that, then?” His voice was muffled.

“You just don’t. Not that there is cause for you to be so,” she amended, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. She shoved at his shoulder and he rolled back so she could see him.

“No, of course not, because it’s not as if scores of men, my own men, don’t pant after you? Haven’t actively tried to bed you? Talk about your idyllic _shared histories_ together.” He continued to chuckle, rubbed a palm against one eye. “If I expended any serious energy on it, I wouldn’t have the time to do any work.”

She was being teased. “Now you’re being ridiculous.”

Sighing, Bran flopped onto his back. “Do you know how many Alphas have told me how much they admired you these last two days? _Admired_ you, Leah, being a polite term. Greengrass’s son had a fight with his mate out front this afternoon about how much he _admired_ you. Conclave, for me, is like wading through a sea of your ex-lovers and pretending I can’t see them.”

“Excuse me, I didn’t _sleep_ with any of them!” she said hotly. After Levi, she hadn’t wanted another man like that for years. And that man, the next man she had looked at, had wanted so badly her teeth had hurt with it, had been Bran.

“You know what I mean.” His eyes were warm. He touched her face. “A deeply unsophisticated part of me, I’ll admit, is proud to have a so-coveted mate. The rest of me does just want to punch them all in the face, repeatedly.”

“I honestly had no idea you felt that way.” It made him more human. It made her feel… happy.

They were in bed, together, so she was allowed to lean over and kiss him. He pushed up against her, eagerly, and she relaxed into him, the kiss evolving into something they both needed more. He drew back to undress her, eyes heated with intent, and she thought she felt their bond, between them, singing.

*

They didn’t sleep much; Bran woke her twice more with his attentions and then, towards dawn, she climbed on top of him and woke him instead. He made the most noise when she was on top and she had always enjoyed that. It was difficult for a dominant male to let a woman take control, so all the sweeter for when she managed it with him. Bran came saying her name like a punch in the air, gripping her hips hard enough to bruise.

“My god,” he said, flopping back on the bed, one arm cast over his eyes. They had ended up at the other end of the bed sometime in the night. The pillows been long been cast onto the floor.

She eased herself from him and dropped down onto the mattress, feeling sore and pleasantly used. “I’m… so tired,” she said. Her body, her mind – she was wrung out.

He grunted and curled around her. “It’s nearly over.”

She stroked his arm. “Has it been good? The conclave?”

“Mmm. It’s been useful. We nearly reached a consensus on the witches yesterday.” ‘Nearly’ had been more than Bran was expecting. Now it just meant he would need to do some more behind-the-scenes work. He was good at that.

She closed her eyes, feeling warm and safe in his arms. She dozed a little but jolted when he spoke again. “The discussion about the children was good, too.”

Leah nodded. “Sam said your session went well.”

He paused, one finger tracing over her abdomen, lightly. “Is it because you’ve changed your mind?”

She felt a prickle of worry, as if they were approaching a landmine sign. “About the children?” she asked.

His nose nudged her cheek. “Yes.”

“It’s not why I asked for it. But sometimes I do think about it,” Leah admitted, compelled, as ever, to be honest. “But then I think about what our lives are like. It’s not… I’m not pining for it. I don’t think.”

“You will tell me if that changes.”

Leah admitted to some confusion. “You make it sound like it’s something you would be open to. I thought it was forbidden.”

Bran thought for a little. “That’s a strong word,” he said, eventually. She waited until she realized he wasn’t going to say anything more and then she went back to sleep.

*

During the morning break, Bran took her aside. She thought it would be to speak about the conclave, or Levi, or even to update her on what Angus had said – she had seen him whispering to her mate and it had made her unnecessarily nervous.

Instead, Bran took her upstairs and closed the door of his bedroom behind them. He started to undo the buttons of her blouse.

“Really?” she said, smiling, her fingers automatically responding by flicking open his shirt buttons. 

“Yes. I cannot tell you how much better I felt this morning. Remind me next time that this is the answer,” he said, cupping her breasts through the lace of her bra and kissing her neck.

After this surprising interlude, Leah had to agree. She sat next to him for the rest of the morning session feeling really rather relaxed. Even Levi’s presence seemed to bother her less. She found herself smiling which seemed to unnerve people. She enjoyed that, too.

At lunch, Bran summoned Levi to his office with a look. Leah stood at his side whilst Levi took the uncomfortable chair, moving it as far back as he could from her. She could smell the blood on him.

“Leah has updated me on the situation. It has nothing to do with me and yet I feel compelled to apologize for your Alpha.” Bran narrowed his eyes at Levi, seeing with eyes that Leah did not have. “And the practice of binding werewolves to their Alphas was something I abolished whilst you were away.”

Levi lowered his head. “I had heard that.”

“There is a white witch, retained by the Emerald City Alpha, who should be able to help with both issues. She is arriving this afternoon, hopefully when everyone has gone. After spending time arguing about witches, the hypocrisy of inviting one to our home is not lost on me.” This was delivered to Leah with a conspiratorial smile.

“This is the witch you spoke to?” Levi asked her.

She nodded. She put her hand on Bran’s shoulder. Levi’s eyes followed it and then looked away. “She’s trustworthy,” she said again.

Levi nodded. He gave a small smile to them both. “I am sorry to have caused you difficulties.”

“In the end, it is fortuitous that my mate’s father thought to punish her with your presence. We will send you back, if you wish to go back, in a better condition than when you arrived.”

“You don’t have to go back, Levi,” she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that he stayed with them, in Aspen Creek, but under her hand she felt a miniscule flicker of tension from her mate. No, he would not like that and in his position she wouldn’t either. She wouldn’t offer it. In the end, they were both very selfish creatures.

Levi looked down at his palms, rubbing them together in the way he did. “Your father is not the man he used to be. I do not think he will last much longer.”

Bran considered Levi. “Could you kill him?”

Her hand clenched on Bran’s shoulder and she pulled it away, folded it under her arm. Her father would die, whether at Levi’s hand or someone else’s.

“I could,” Levi said.

“Do so, then. You would save me a job. Killing your wife’s parent is a little macabre, even for me.”

*

Leah did not like having Moira in her space and judging from the agitated way Bran was behaving, he wasn’t happy either.

“Goodness. Can you even move?” Moira said, looking at Leah’s chains. In Leah’s otherness, Moira had eyes – a pale, icy blue. It was very disconcerting.

“They’re fine,” she said, trying to cross her arms over her chest and not being able to.

“Go walk over there,” Moira suggested, pointing to Leah’s dressing table.

“I will do no such thing,” Leah replied, lifting her chin. She wasn’t about to take orders from a witch in the essence of herself. She glared at her.

Bran cleared his throat. “Ladies, if I could draw your attention to the issue in question?”

“Fine, but I hope you plan on addressing _that_ ,” the witch said, snippily, to Bran.

Leah’s mate visibly bristled. It was rare for him to be spoken to that way. “I intend to. _After_.”

Leah was coming to understand that the chains, her chains, were perhaps not normal. They hadn’t used to be so obviously restrictive, she thought, thinking back to the last time she had been in this space. Then they had been more like the thin necklace chains – tough but ultimately more workable. The more time she spent in the other space, the heavier the bonds felt now. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to walk over to the dressing table.

She sighed. Bran’s bonds made music – why couldn’t hers do that? 

“It’s not getting worse,” Bran said, considering the chain that was their bond. To Leah’s eyes, it looked shinier. She wondered if sex did that.

Whilst her mate and the witch were occupied, Leah lifted up the hem of her skirt to look at the manacle around her thigh. It was Asil and it was black and she had been aware of it the whole time she had been standing. Of course, even here he was bothering her. It was squeezing her leg tightly, the flesh on either side was red-tender. The chain it was attached to was hot.

“Jeez,” Moira said, whistling through her teeth. “That’s a nasty one.”

Leah dropped her skirt and stood up. Bran was furious. “Is that Asil?” he demanded.

“He hates me and I hate him,” she pointed out.

Her mate took a deep and obviously meditative breath. “Moira, do you have any thoughts?”

“I would like to see if there’s any evidence of the first bond with Levi. I would presume it would be on her.” Moira looked at Leah, the corner of her mouth pressing inwards thoughtfully. “Do you think you could remove the dress?”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Really?” she asked Bran.

Her mate apologized silently. “Just think it gone,” he suggested.

Leah at least knew enough to know that. She willed the dress away and looked down at herself as Moira and Bran moved around her. She couldn’t see anything from her front but from the time both Bran and Moira were spending looking at her back, she gathered they had found something.

“What is it?” she said, turning her head to look over her shoulder. She could see Moira but Bran’s face was just out of reach.

“It’s where the witch went in,” Moira said, quietly. “There’s an incision. Do you mind if I touch it?”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Bran said, voice the voice he used when he was thinking of death.

Leah turned her head the other way and flinched. “Bran, _not here_ ,” she said, as the temperature started to plummet. She turned to face him, so he couldn’t see whatever had made him angry. His eyes were almost all pupil.

“Okay, no touching, got it. The good news is,” Moira considered, her voice shaky, “is that there’s nothing left and it looked… clean. Nasty, but clean. And I will be able to recognize its signature in Levi’s space.”

Leah wished she could see it. She couldn’t _feel_ anything. Bran was still silent, his face a cold mask of nothing. She willed her dress back and this time it was black. “Is everything in here symbolic?” she said.

“Let’s hope Levi’s is,” Moira said, inching away from Bran. She gave Leah a wobbly smile. “I think it’s time to go.”

*

Naturally, Leah was not able to join Bran and Moira in their sojourn into Levi’s otherness. Instead, she sat with Anna on the other couch in their living area and watched everyone enter their meditative states. Tom and Angus were sitting on the decking outside, drinking coffee and biscuits left over from the catering. Charles was in Bran’s office. The house felt strangely empty, even though this was a fairly normal number of people to be in the communal areas of her home.

Leah sighed, watching Bran. He had changed into his usual T-shirt and jeans combination and was sitting with his legs crossed on the armchair, eyes closed. They’d had to take an hour-long break after they had emerged from Leah’s unconsciousness and she had taken the precaution of inviting Anna to join them, just in case. With Anna had come Charles, who had looked as if she had interrupted an afternoon nap.

“I’ve never looked at this other space,” Anna said, thoughtfully.

“No, it’s not really necessary. Not unless there’s a problem,” Leah explained, vaguely. “Sometimes, new werewolves have problems with the pack bonds. The instincts don’t kick in and Bran has to work with them. Though, that hasn’t happened since you’ve been here.”

It was an interesting thought.

They lapsed into silence once again.

“I think Kara has a crush on the Montreal Alpha.”

“Does she.” Leah wasn’t hugely surprised.

“Would you consider sending her there for a placement?”

Leah shook her head, initially because the idea of Kara going so far away was momentarily mind-blowing. Then because, “She’s too young. She needs to go somewhere where someone would take care of her. Like a daughter, not like a potential mate.” Not that the Montreal Alpha would do that. He was young for an Alpha, though. She thought he’d been turned in the 60s. For werewolves that was almost a reasonable age gap.

“Is that what happened to you?”

She had never particularly enjoyed questions about her past. Not in the same way that Bran and some of the other worlds were bothered by. It was more that she simply didn’t like to share information. “It was different then.”

Anna’s thoughts made her fidget. “Not sure werewolf instincts and Victorian sensibilities were a great mix,” she said, eventually.

“Puritan,” Leah corrected with a scowl. “My father liked to think of himself as a Puritan. Trust me, that was worse.”

*

By hour four, Leah was getting restless. She had crouched down in front of her mate, watching him, listening to his heart, for any sign of distress, then done the same for Levi, noticing that being near him didn’t cause her the same problems as before. That had to be a good sign, a sign that something was working.

“I think, perhaps, we should eat something,” Anna suggested.

So they did. They gorged on leftover pastas and salads from the buffet, on cold canapés and barbeque food. Angus fetched a bottle of wine from the garage that he had seen earlier and she, Charles and Angus had a glass, everyone else declining.

“This is nice,” she said, surprised into saying something. She didn’t really drink red wine. “Kind of…” She thought about it, sucking the taste from her mouth.

“Meaty,” Angus said, with a toothy smile.

She heard herself giggle and promptly stopped it. “Yes. Just so.”

After a glass or two and some more conversation about the conclave and how everyone thought it had gone, Leah was vaguely thinking of putting a movie on when Bran’s eyes suddenly opened and he swayed dangerously forwards. She leaped forward to catch him, only Charles got there first, pulling his father back from behind.

“Are you all right?” she said, clambering to sit on the floor beneath him, kneeling to look into his face.

“Did you have a party?” her mate asked, looking at the platters of food and wine glasses on the table. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. “Without me?”

Moira emerged next, to Tom’s visible relief. Levi made a small, contented noise and rolled over into the back of the sofa.

“He’ll probably need to sleep that off,” Moira guessed, slumping back on her chair. “My back is _killing_ me.”

*

To say Leah put Bran to bed wasn’t too far from the truth. He was practically bouncing off the walls with exhaustion, his every movement very slow and methodical. She watched him put on his pajamas, ready to catch him if he fell. Then she pulled back the comforter and pointed. “In,” she said.

“You too,” he said, crawling into bed, and clutching a pillow to his face.

“I’ll be there very shortly.”

She checked on Moira and Tom, who were staying in her room. She had re-made the linens on her bed, overcoming the aversion of someone else sleeping in her room by sheer force of necessity. It would be ungrateful not to be accommodating when Moira had done so much. Everything personal she had shoved into a box and put it in Bran’s wardrobe, before locking the adjoining door between them on both sides.

Levi, Charles had carried into the guest room he had been staying in. He had not woken once. She left a sandwich in some Tuppaware on his dresser, along with a large glass of water, in case he woke up hungry.

Then she went downstairs and checked on Angus, who was wearing sweats, had two bottles of red wine airing on the coffee table and was watching something that looked a lot like – “Is that… Eurovision?”

“From the 1980s. Its heyday,” he said, barely taking his eyes from the screen.

“I’ll take your word for that.” She started to make up the other couch for him. She caught him looking, twice, when she bent over to push the flat sheet under the cushions. “Really, Angus,” she drawled. “In the Marrok’s house, no less.”

Angus smiled at her. “It’s a nice view, Mrs. Cornick,” he said, charmingly. He toasted her with his glass. “My compliments to your husband.”

She rolled her eyes and went upstairs. _Honestly_.

Back in Bran’s bedroom, she closed the door. Her mate hadn’t moved but as she got changed, she heard him mutter, “What did I tell you. It’s non-stop.” 

*

Leah woke, alone, Bran’s side of the bed cold. The sun that was coming through the window told her it was late morning. She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, feeling the warmth on her face. The house felt quiet, _was_ quiet. 

She got up and stuck her head out into the hall. The guest room door was open, which suggested Levi wasn’t in it. She listened but couldn’t hear anything. Perhaps they’d left?

She changed, quickly, into a more relaxed pair of jeans and a white T-shirt and ran downstairs. The couch had been stripped of the bedding, folded neatly at the bottom. She followed the hall down to Bran’s office.

Her mate was alone, feet up on his desk, reading Time magazine. She felt like she’d stepped back in time.

“Have they… gone?” she asked.

Bran turned the page, without looking at her. “Did you want to say goodbye?”

Leah thought about it. “Only to Levi,” she admitted, drifting into his office a couple of steps and then feeling as if she was perhaps not welcome. But that was ridiculous, she thought. The man had been inside her mind only yesterday.

“You’re in luck, then. Whilst he was waiting for you, he’s gone for a run. On two legs,” Bran added. He pointed. “Head north towards the creek and I imagine you’ll find him.”

She nodded and turned in the door, then turned back. “Are we all right?” she asked, aware that things had been very different for the last few days and now they seemed exactly as they once had been. 

“Aren’t we always?” Bran said, putting his magazine down against his chest. His expression said nothing.

Leah held his gaze for a moment and then she lowered it, embarrassed. “Yes, of course,” she managed, before walking away.

*

Leah put on her hiking boots and left the house without really looking at the weather. It was humid outside, the skies heavy now. Rain was imminent, she thought, trudging in a northerly direction. She wished she’d put her hair up. Or brought a raincoat.

She walked mindlessly for a few minutes.

Something had happened, she thought. In between Bran going to sleep and her waking up, she felt for sure something had happened. Tom and Moira had gone, presumably with Angus. Had they had some kind of discussion? About her?

Or had she imagined it - that the last few days had been different? That Bran had been different? 

He had admitted to being jealous over men from her past. He had never, _ever_ admitted to that before. She had been utterly convinced it was an emotion he had trained himself out of or simply didn’t care about her enough for it to have any impact on him.

She thought, in her worst moments, that he even disliked her. It hadn’t felt like that yesterday.

Had she misread things, badly? Humiliatingly badly?

Leah clambered over a fallen tree, so deep in her thoughts that Levi’s appearance in her field of vision threw her completely.

“Hello,” Levi said, smiling broadly at her, chest rising and falling with big breaths from his run. He was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, a sweater tied around his waist, and shoes that were completely inappropriate for the terrain.

And he looked so genuinely joyful, so like the old Levi that she found herself smiling back. Beaming, in fact. “You look so much better!” she exclaimed. It was like someone had switched a light on inside of him. Even his eyes looked a shade or two lighter. She thought if they could place the Levi from yesterday next to this Levi they would look like completely different people.

“I feel fantastic. I can’t tell you. I feel like… a totally new person.” He laughed and it seemed only natural for them to move towards each other, for her arms to reach out, for him to hug her tight to him. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“I really… can’t take any of the credit.”

She closed her eyes. How wonderful it felt to be held by him, she thought. Or just held in general. No expectations, no baggage, just a shoulder for her to rest her head on. So wonderful that when he made a move to go, she held on tighter. She trembled, just a little.

Levi adjusted his stance, bringing them more completely together, hip to hip. He rested his chin on her head. “It’s been amazing seeing you, sitting up there in front of all those Alphas,” he said, a warm hand cupping the back of her head. “You look like you are exactly where you are supposed to be.”

There was nothing she could say to that. She had been the Marrok’s mate for a long time. She tried to be good at it, tried to adhere to the bargain they had. 

Eventually, she managed to pull herself away from him and took a stumbling, step back. She smiled at him, feeling shy for the first time. Here was the man she had loved, all those years ago.

“Walk me back?” he suggested, gesturing behind her.

They strolled slowly and Levi cleared his throat. “So, I met Anna, Charles, Kara, of course. Sam. Is there anyone else in your family?”

Leah swallowed down the lump in her throat. “That’s it,” she managed. She felt clarifying that none of them considered her to be family would be unnecessary and would only lead to him asking more questions. 

“And the Marrok, he treats you well?”

She laughed at how awkwardly he had asked. “Levi, really?”

“Yes, really. For a long time you were—“

He hesitated and she stopped in horror, hand to her chest, “Don’t say _like a sister_.”

“Not that.” The corners of his eyes crinkled and he put a big hand on the back of her neck, squeezed. They carried on walking. “Obviously not that. But he treats you well? He loves you?”

“He treats me just fine, Levi,” she said, imbuing her voice with confidence. It wasn’t a lie. “We’ve been married a very long time.”

“Good, then.” Levi let his other question lie, to her relief.

“And… how have you been? Any women in your life?”

His eyes slanted to her. “I am with someone. Currently.”

“You are?” Leah didn’t know how she felt about that. Shocked, she supposed. Hurt? Could she be hurt? She really couldn’t tell. She seemed to have reached her limit of emotions. “I – good. I guess. Well, actually, I hate her, but you can’t be surprised about that. Knowing me, as you did. Do.”

Levi chuckled and even she found herself laughing. “No, I guess not. Remember, when you had to go to Utah to stay with the Phillips. The wife kept flirting with me and you poisoned her.”

Leah did. She even felt the echo of her fury. “She absolutely deserved that.”

“She nearly died,” he said, fondly.

“Yes. _Deserved to_.”

It started to rain, then. Big, fat drops crashing loudly through the trees. The smell that lifted from the ground was amazing. She sucked in great breaths of it, relishing the smell of wet pine and earth and goodness.

“You always loved the rain.”

“Mmm.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Is this woman in my father’s pack? How long have you been together?”

Levi nodded. “A few years. She was one of the early migrations from Europe.”

“Ah.” One of Bran’s ‘bribes’ to the Europeans – opening up their borders. “French?” she asked, because there had been a great exodus from France, those fleeing the direct rule of Chastel.

“Spanish. I knew her. From back then.”

Leah wrinkled her nose, wiped rainfall from her forehead. She couldn’t think of more questions to ask him about this woman she really did hate the idea of. “I think I’ve reached my limit, Levi.”

“You did very well.”

“Thank you,” she said, haughtily. Then smiled at him again. She didn’t think she had smiled so much in years.

Levi put his hand on her head. In the space of one conversation, he had touched her more affectionately than Bran would in a month. “You’re getting very wet. Here.” He unwound the sweater from his waist and handed it to her. “Put it over your head.”

“I’m hardly going to catch a cold.”

“No, but your T-shirt is turning see-through and I can see your nipples.” His grin was cheeky.

Leah stuck her tongue out at him and did as he suggested, arranging the sleeves primly so they covered her breasts. She wondered if Bran had given back his sweatshirt. Probably not. She would have to dig it out before he left.

“Will you really kill him?” she asked.

Levi nodded. “I spoke to Bran again this morning. It’s an order, now. I’m his second; I would assume control of the pack. And get rid of the witch.”

‘Get rid’, Leah assumed, also meant kill. She hadn’t loved her father for centuries. Probably since he had told her he had murdered Levi, she thought. She didn’t care if he died. But she wondered if setting a precedent of killing him for past crimes was reasonable. They had all done things in their past that Bran would consider unacceptable now. Including Bran himself, in fact. Sometimes her mate reacted emotionally rather than rationally, particularly when it came to witches.

“What’s he like now? Does he still use the witch?”

“For a few things. We’ve had a few instances with the fae, like everyone else, where she was useful.”

“Does he have a mate? Or married?”

Levi shook his head. “He’s not all there, Leah. The pack is small. His income is barely covering his expenditures.”

“I know,” she said. He had been a great man, once. He had thrown her in the air as a little girl and tickled her until she cried with laughter. “But, perhaps you could challenge him? Rather than an outright execution?”

“You would give him the honor of a fair death?”

They stopped. The rain had flattened his hair to his head, clumped together his eyelashes. His T-shirt, like hers, was transparent. “Please,” she said.

Levi sighed and tipped his head back to meet the rain. “Even though he doesn’t deserve it for what he did to us?”

She knew he had suffered, more than her. “No, he doesn’t deserve it. But all of us have done things we shouldn’t have done.”

He started walking again. “I’ll think about it, Leah. It’s all I can promise you.”

The house came into view soon enough. Water was dripping down her back. Her jeans were heavy. She thought, suddenly, of the chains that bound her to the pack here. “What else did you and Bran talk about this morning?” she asked.

“Not much. He asked what you were like when you were human. I told him some stories.”

She groaned. “Fantastic.”

“He liked the one with your handmade shoes in every color of the rainbow. Seemed to strike a chord.”

Leah had a _small_ shoe problem. “At least tell me you told him some flattering ones?”

“Couldn’t think of any.”

Gasping, she pulled his sweater off her head and struck at him with it. He took it like a man should and pulled it from her, pulled her to him and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I feel like a new man,” he told her, laughing. “Like my life is just beginning. Is that crazy?”

“No, it’s not crazy. I’m glad for you.” Him and his Spanish woman, she thought. He deserved it.

*

Bran was nowhere to be found when Levi took his leave. She searched – she could feel him, but she couldn’t see him – and Levi shrugged. “No matter,” he said, kissing her forehead and hugging her once more. “You have my cell phone number. I would like to hear from you.”

“You too. Let me know how your journey home goes. And, well. About the other thing.”

“I’ll let you know when it’s done, either way,” he said. He squeezed her hard, lifting her from the ground as only a man taller than her could. 

Then he was gone.

She stood in the driveway for a while, long after his rental had disappeared from sight, then she turned on her heel, gravel crunching under her feet, and walked around to the back yard.

“Bran?” she called. She waited before trying again. “Bran?”

Nothing.

The man was a mystery, she thought.

Well. She had things to do. She wasn’t going to wait around for him, like always. She had an apology to collect.

*

Asil invited her into his hothouse and handed her a pair of pruning sheers, then refused to release them. “Do you know what to do?”

“Yes,” she said. She had roses, too. It wasn’t that hard.

He sniffed and released them. They didn’t talk. Eventually, he made her tea – a horrid, herbal blend that tasted like hot damp manure. She drank it anyway.

“What he did was a heinous crime,” Asil told her, finally, when she truly thought they would pass the afternoon without a word being exchanged.

She nodded. If Asil knew, she resigned herself to the fact that everyone in the pack would know, or know soon enough. She hated pity. She hoped a lot of them disliked her enough not to bother pitying her.

“Your mate, my Alpha, tells me that you would sever a body part before you gave yourself to another man.”

A rather extreme interpretation, she thought. She wondered when her mate, his Alpha, had told Asil this and if it had been Bran who had told Asil all the details about her father and the witch. “He’s right.”

The Moor sniffed. “Fine, then.”

Leah thought of the manacle that was Asil, gripped around her thigh. She touched the edge of a perfect bloom with the very tip of her finger, stroking its velvety flesh. “I love him. I know he respects me for what I am but he will never love me the way you loved your Sarai. That kills me a little, every day,” she said.

He paused, then nodded. “You have my sympathy, Leah.”

The good thing about Asil was that he didn’t know what pity was. At least not when it came to her. “Thank you.”

She went home with a bouquet of half a dozen roses and no apology. But it was good enough. The house was still empty. She arranged the roses in a vase in the middle of the coffee table so anyone from the pack would see them and know what they meant. Then she stood on the decking and called Bran’s name again.

He did not answer.

*

That evening, Kara came by carrying a bag of Leah’s clothes, cleaned and neatly pressed and folded. “You can keep them,” Leah said, feeling generous.

“Really?” Kara clutched the bag to herself with a hopeful expression. Leah suspected if she changed her mind, Kara would fight her for the clothes. The thought made her smile. It was followed by another, a stray, strange thought – if Mercedes had been a werewolf, would she have had this kind of relationship with her, as well? Loved her like she loved Kara?

It was a sobering idea – and unpleasant. She was not proud of how she had treated Mercedes. She’d had her reasons and they had seemed valid at the time. It had never been about Mercedes, however. It had always been about Bran. It had taken her a long time to realize that.

She put her arm around Kara’s waist, pulling her into the house. “Yes. Come and eat with me. My mate has disappeared and I have enough pasta for ten.”

The young woman followed Leah, leaving her bag at the door. “His car’s still in the drive.”

“Yes, I know. I think he’s hiding from me.”

Kara giggled, thinking Leah was joking. “Okay. Did the conclave go well? It seemed to go well.”

“Bran says so. I’m just glad it’s over for another fifteen years.”

In the kitchen, she handed Kara the big serving bowl of rigatoni – leftovers, again, that needed to be finished. Then she grabbed cutlery and bowls and they went to sit at the big table in the living area. “Do you want some wine?” she asked.

Kara blinked. “I… guess?”

“You probably won’t like the taste,” Leah mused. “I’ll bring you a coke, as well.”

Despite Bran’s absence, and what it could possibly mean, Leah was feeling lighter. The conclave had been a success. Levi was alive – and no longer broken. Kara might have a brighter future. Even the conversation with Asil - where she had revealed her soft underbelly to him - had made her feel like she was making progress.

She and Kara ate dinner. They talked a little about college. Leah had never been so didn’t feel qualified to talk about it but said that it seemed like something people did for the experience, more than anything else. Kara herself brought up the secondments. She liked the idea, particularly tying it with a college experience. “That way, if I didn’t make friends, I’d always have the pack.”

“You won’t have problem making friends,” Leah assured her.

The front door opened and closed. Bran. Finally.

Her mate came in. His hair was wet – it was raining again – but he wasn’t wearing a raincoat. He smelt of the forest and there was mud spattered up his pants. Had he been out walking all day? she wondered, frowning.

“Plenty for you, if you’re hungry,” Leah said, indicating the bowl in the middle of the table.

Bran said nothing but went to the kitchen and returned with a plate and fork. He sat at the head of the table and helped himself, silently.

Kara gave him a quick, odd glance and then looked at Leah for direction. She loved Bran – all the pack did with the devotion of acolytes – but equally he was more than capable of causing them anxiety when his behavior diverted from what they knew.

“You could still come back here, for holidays,” Leah continued, decided she would simply ignore Bran, who was eating like a starving man next to her. “We’ll keep your apartment for you. And we can visit.” Though Leah didn’t much like travelling, these days, she would do it for Kara.

This seemed to comfort her. “It would be just temporary,” Kara said, as if to herself.

Leah pushed Kara’s mostly untouched glass of wine to Bran, who picked it up and took a sip. “Just temporary. And if you just wanted to go to college near here, that’s fine too. We want you to have as many options as possible.”

Kara nodded, twirling her spoon in her bowl. “I talked to my dad about it. He thought it sounded okay. He was worried another pack wouldn’t like him visiting, though.”

“We would stipulate that as part of the placement,” Bran said, dropping his fork and sitting back in his chair. “I would do introductions. Your parents would be untouchable, wherever you went.”

Kara smiled down into her empty bowl. “Thank you. Really, thank you.”

*

Bran went to his office, after dinner, and Kara left shortly after that.

Leah wandered up to her bedroom, half wondering if she should bother her mate, see if she could get him to talk to her. Something was going on in his clever, clever mind, she thought, and she had no idea what. 

She changed into an old T-shirt of Bran’s and a pair of checked shorts, brushed her teeth, her hair. She debated, briefly, getting into her own bed but decided that would be cowardly. She propped up the pillows in his and sat, reading a magazine, waiting for him to join her.

She was three pages in – having neither read or seen anything at all of the content – when he came in and closed the door behind her. She dropped the magazine on the floor and watched him undress, go into the bathroom, heard him brush his teeth.

Leah turned down the covers on his side of the bed and he climbed in, lay on his back, taking up his usual thoughtful pose.

“I spoke to Asil,” he said.

“I gathered. He gave me roses. Eventually,” she admitted.

“I saw them.” Bran wriggled, so that his head was more comfortable in the pillows. “Moira took me to task again, this morning, about the pack bonds. They should be shared more equally between the Alpha pair.”

Leah didn’t understand this and told him so.

Bran sighed, not a frustrated sigh, but a weary one. “It’s hard to explain. In essence, I think you see them as more your responsibility than mine. I studied mine today and there’s really no comparison. You will bear the weight of their feelings, their thoughts, far more than me.”

“I don’t notice it.” 

“No. It’s probably been going on for decades. You will have just adapted to filter it out. But it will have put pressure on you, magically, likely even psychologically, without you realizing.” He turned his head. “When you leave Aspen Creek, do you feel uncomfortable?”

Leah thought about it. She didn’t, truthfully leave her home very often or for very long. “Yes, I don’t really like doing it.”

He nodded. “That’s part of it. I’m going to start taking the load from you. I should never have allowed it to happen. You shouldn’t feel _trapped_ here. _I_ have all but trapped you here.”

“It doesn’t sound like you did it on purpose. It sounds like something I did, to myself,” she said fairly.

“We won’t argue the point,” Bran decided, which meant he thought she wrong and didn’t want to disagree. “Either way, it’s unfair on you and I apologize.”

Leah was beginning to feel that this was something she was never going to completely understand but it was just something Bran felt guilty about. “You’re forgiven,” she said, promptly.

He half-smiled and took her hand, lifted it to his mouth, a rare moment of sweetness from him. “Thank you.”

Thinking that this was it, this was his dilemma and now he had confessed and she had forgiven him, so it was over, Leah started rearranging her pillows, then snuggled down. She thought, perhaps, Bran might make a move on her, as he sometimes did when he felt guilty, but he continued to lie on his back, staring at the ceiling. She thought about making a move on him but decided against it. She closed her eyes, just glad he was there, beside her once again.

*

In the morning, she found Bran had moved Asil’s roses into a less obvious spot in the living room. She moved them back. The whole point was that those from the pack would see them, would know them for an apology. When she returned from her run, Bran had put them somewhere else, again. This time in the dining room, a less often used space.

“I don’t think another man should be giving my mate flowers,” he told her, when she confronted him after he emerged for lunch.

Leah was baffled. “They’re… apology flowers.”

“I don’t care. _Don’t_ move them.”

They were _her_ flowers, she thought, annoyed. _No one_ gave her flowers. She put them back on the coffee table and this time they stayed put.

She eventually found Levi’s sweater in the laundry, in the hamper she used to transfer clean clothes upstairs. It was shredded – as in, Bran had taken his claws to it. She felt a prickle of fear and threw it away, then went back into the living room and moved the flowers to the dining room.

Leah _liked_ that Bran was jealous, that he was capable of feeling it over her, even if it was nothing more than territorial instincts. But she wasn’t suicidal.

That afternoon, some of the pack dropped in, hung around as they were wont to do, digging through the leftovers she had said were still available. She was telling Tag off for eating directly from the bowl of pasta on her couch, like a heathen, when Bran came out of his office. He smiled at them all, put his hand on her hip and kissed her. “I’m going to pick up some books I had ordered. Do you want anything?”

If she cared to, Leah could count on one hand the number of times Bran had kissed her in front of the pack. A couple of passionate clutches, when the moon was high and so was everyone’s blood. A dry peck on the cheek when she had done something well.

“Hand soap,” she said, because it was on her mental list. “Please.”

“Hand soap,” he repeated, kissing her again and lingering long enough that she closed her eyes and leaned into him. He patted her behind and let her go. “I will be back later.”

She knew it was strange – that this wasn’t her imagination - because their people were staring at them, frozen with surprise.

“Well, well,” Tag said, digging his spoon back into the massive bowl.

“Will you stop that,” she said, trying to snatch the bowl away from him.

“I’m telling you, I will just eat it all!”

*

In their time together, she and Bran had been together in every possible way two bodies could be joined. She wasn’t shy about it – she enjoyed the pleasure he could give her and enjoyed giving it back. Bran had only ever really felt _with_ her when they were entwined and she had taken advantage of that, more times than she could count.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on what felt different about it now, however. He kissed her the same, his hands were gentle when they needed to be, rough when she wanted. But something… something was different.

Two nights after the conclave, she realized, sleepily, that he was touching a particular part of her back. “Is that where it was?” she asked.

“Yes. Right behind your heart.”

She had been facing away from him and, at this, her eyes opened more fully. She thought about Bran’s bond, wrapped around her neck, choking her. “You think it has meaning,” she said, forcing herself to turn and look at him.

He was lying on his front, one arm propping his head up. His fingers continued to explore her back. “Yes. And no,” he said. Then he smirked at her expression of annoyance, ran his hand down to cup her behind and squeezed. “It has bothered me. More than it should.”

“Where’s our bond, on you?”

“It’s not the same. It’s music. It’s not… attached to me in the same way.”

She didn’t understand how he could control it without it being physical but it was one of those things she guessed was different between the way their minds worked. “Still the same sound?” she asked, folding her hands under her head. She sometimes thought she heard it, when they were together. It was probably fanciful.

“Yes. Like running water. Difficult to explain with words.”

“Could you play it?” 

He shook his head. “I’ve tried to. It never works. Never sounds the way it should do.” He moved over and rearranged her so her back was against his chest, their legs tucked together. They had done this before, she thought. Just not that often. Perhaps if he had been hurt, or she had. They didn’t fall asleep together like this.

Bran’s breaths became even, his body relaxing behind hers as he fell asleep. She tried to stay awake, to enjoy every moment of this strange, strange time, but sleep took her as well and in the morning he was gone.

*

When the message came from Levi that her father was dead, she put her phone down and walked into Bran’s office. She had always sought him for comfort, before, when she needed it. His responses had been a mixed bag and never quite enough, never quite right, as if he deliberately mismanaged it so that she was unsatisfied.

That day, he did exactly the right thing and just held her.

“I’m not sad,” she told his neck. He smelt good, like home – there was nothing like it. “He was cruel and made my life hell and he did something unspeakable and deserved to die.”

Bran held her tighter. “I know, sweetheart, I know.”

She cried, then, because he didn’t call her sweetheart and because the man who had raised her was no more. Her mate kissed her neck and when she pulled her face back to look at him, to ask him why she was _sweetheart_ now when she never had been before, he kissed her cheeks, her tears and her mouth. His heart was breaking for her, she thought, holding his face in her hands so she could look into his eyes, study the placement of the flecks of gold of his irises that she knew by memory. He let her hold him, let her look, let her see everything, willing her to understand.

“You love me,” she said, knowing it to be true. Knowing it may always have been true.

“I love you,” he agreed, touching his forehead to hers.

She kissed him because she had to and because she could. “The world hasn’t ended,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” Bran admitted, begrudgingly, smiling as he kissed her corner of her mouth, the cupid’s bow of her lips. “Still time for that.”

Leah wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself be held.

-END-


End file.
